Socio-economic differentials of fertility and infant mortality in Lesotho.

The kingdom of Lesotho has a 1986 population of 1.6 million with a rate of growth of 2.5% per year. Infant mortality estimates were between 110-130 per 1000 live births. The objective of this study was to examine the underlying influence and interaction of socioeconomic factors on fertility and infant mortality. The source of demographic data was the Lesotho Fertility Survey which was conducted in 1977 as part of the World Fertility Survey. 2 approaches were adopted to examine the underlying hypothesis correlating socioeconomic factors to infant mortality. The 1st approach was to compute frequency tables in order to select variables to be included in the analysis. The 2nd approach was to compute cross-tabulations to study existing variations according to different categories influencing fertility and mortality. The major findings are that education of both parents has a strong influence on infant mortality. Since educated women had a lower infant mortality the author suggested that women need to be educated and employed in order to reduce infant mortality.