Page 83 - IJPS-10-4

International Journal of

Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Impact of rural-urban migration on indirect child

mortality estimation in Kenya

Alfred M. Kathare* , Kimani Murungaru , and Alfred O.T. Agwanda
Department of Geography, Population and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences,
University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract
When estimating child mortality rates using the indirect method, it is assumed that
all reported births and deaths occurred in the place where the mothers resided at
the time of the survey. However, the migration of women can result in transferring
data about deceased children from one place to another. In many developing
countries, substantial migration happens between rural and urban regions, where
child mortality disparities are significant. This migration creates challenges as child
mortality estimates for rural and urban areas computed under the assumption of
non-migration are likely to be erroneous. Our study pooled data from six Kenya
Demographic and Health Surveys between 1989 and 2014. The study aimed to
establish statistical evidence of the impact of rural-urban migration on indirect child
mortality estimates. Our findings indicate that the inclusion of deceased children
born to women who migrated from rural to urban regions led to a significant
overestimation of infant, one-to-four, and under-five mortality rates in urban areas.
On average, the overestimation of infant mortality rates ranged from 2.5% to 21.7%,
*Corresponding author: while one-to-four mortality rate overestimation ranged from 4.0% to 41.2%. The
Alfred M. Kathare average overestimation of under five mortality rate was between 3.0% and 26.8%.
(kathare2005@yahoo.co.uk) Based on these results, future indirect estimates of child mortality for rural and urban
Citation: Kathare, A.M., Murungaru, regions should be adjusted to account for the impacts of migration between these
K. & Agwanda, A.O.T. (2024). areas. Furthermore, it is essential to consider re-estimating trends of child mortality
Impact of rural-urban migration on
indirect child mortality estimation for rural and urban regions in Kenya to better understand the timing of mortality
in Kenya. International Journal of convergence between these regions.
Population Studies, 10(4): 77-86.
https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.1837
Received: September 14, 2023 Keywords: Child mortality rate; Brass indirect method; Migration; Rural region; Urban
region; Migration impact; Kenya
Accepted: February 26, 2024
Published Online: July 10, 2024
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s).
This is an Open-Access article 1. Introduction
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution Estimating child mortality rates is crucial for understanding public health trends and
License, permitting distribution, implementing effective interventions. Broadly, there are two methods used for estimating
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is child mortality rates: The direct method and the indirect method. The indirect method
properly cited. for estimating child mortality was pioneered by Brass & Coale (1968) following Brass’s
Publisher’s Note: AccScience seminal works in 1964. The Brass indirect method is popular in developing countries
Publishing remains neutral with because many of them lack reliable vital registration data. This method can produce
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional fairly accurate estimates with low-cost summary birth history data readily available from
affiliations. surveys and censuses. The Brass equation is given by Equation I:

Volume 10 Issue 4 (2024) 77 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.1837