LINKING CHILD HEALTH, MATERNAL LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION AND HOUSEHOLD ASSET ENDOWMENTS IN CAMEROON: WHAT THE PEOPLE SAY

RJOAS, 10(34), October 2014

LINKING CHILD HEALTH, MATERNAL LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION AND HOUSEHOLD ASSET ENDOWMENTS IN CAMEROON:
WHAT THE PEOPLE SAY

Mbu Daniel Tambi, Lecturer
Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Dschang, Cameroon E-mail: tambimbu@yahoo.com

Aloysius Mom Njong, Associate professor Department of Economics, University of Bamenda, Cameroon E-mail: mom aloys@yahoo.fr

Menjo Francis Baye, Professor
Department of Economics and Management, University of Yaounde II, Cameroon E-mail: bayemenjo@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT
This paper is targeted objectives: to document the determinants of child health as informed by focus group discussion, to analyze what the people say concerning the relationship between child health and maternal labour force participation, to explore the perception of the people on the effects of child health on asset accumulation and to suggest public policies on the basis of the findings. We used seven focus groups to explore what the people say based on different health domains: access to public goods; inputs to health; benefits from better health; better child health and complementary activities; benefits of maternity leave and better child health, decision making concerning family health. Each focus group was made of eight participants: housewife, traders, farmers, drivers, teachers, technicians, medical personnel and military drawn from different religious groups: catholic, protestant mainline, protestant non-mainline, other protestant, Muslim, systemic and traditional belief. We observed that, parents make used of the extra time accrue to them due to better health for their children and family to do extra work that fetched them money. The increased family income is use to send their children to better schools, carter for their wellbeing as well as to promote asset growth and redistribution, thus, improving economic well-being and reducing poverty. In case of retirement or sudden retrenchment from the labour market, parents make use of the accumulated assets to increase their family income and maintain well-being, hence, reducing the psychological trauma on parents due to poverty. Based on these findings, we recommend that decision makers and actors concern with child health issues should considered, ease and promote child health outcomes. This is a key to narrowing the poverty and inequality gap between the poor and non-poor, rural and urban household residence, married and unmarried, employed and the unemployed, promote maternal labour force participation and household wealth accumulation in Cameroon.

KEY WORDS
Cameroon; Child health; Household asset endowment; Maternal labour force; Participation.

     The use of focus group discussion in health issues is gradually gaining grounds in health economics. Focus Group Discussion (FGD) entails gathering people from similar backgrounds or experiences together to discuss a specific topic of interest (Bender and Ewbank, 1994). It may also be considered as a group discussion of approximately 6 to 12 persons who are guided by a facilitator, during which group members talk freely and spontaneously about issues of interest such as child health. The strength of focus group relies on allowing the participants to agree or disagree with each other so that it provides an insight into how people think about health issues. The range of opinions, ideas, inconsistencies and variations that exist in the discussion in terms of beliefs, experiences and practices provide adequate information for qualitative research analysis (Merton, 1956; Zimmerman et al., 1990).


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RJOAS, 10(34), October 2014

      Focus groups can reveal a wealth of detailed information and deep insight about the relationship between child health, maternal labour and household asset. When well executed, a focus group creates an accepting environment that puts participants at ease, allowing them to thoughtfully answer questions in their own words and add meaning to their answers on child health. Surveys are good for collecting information about people’s attributes and attitudes, but if one needs to understand things at a deeper level then focus group discussions is better.
      Child health influences on labour market and economic outcomes/asset endowments have been a major inquiry in development studies since the last decades. Focus group discussions attempt to explore a specific set of issues such as people’s views and experiences on child health and child health related effects (Crokett et al., 1990), mental illness (Grunig, 1990), contraception use (Zimmerman et al., 1990; Barker and Rich, 1992) or drunk-driving (Basch et al., 1989). The group is focused as it involves some kind of collective activity such as examining child health or simply debating on a particular set of health questions. Focus groups are distinguished from the broader category of group interviews by the explicit used of the group interaction as research data (Merton, 1956; Morgan, 1988) and are a strong instrument in analyzing health issues. Focus group discussion was first mentioned as a market research technique in the 1920s (Bogardus, 1926; Basch, 1987) and was used by Merton in the 1950s to examine people’s reactions to wartime propaganda (Merton, 1956).
      As noted by Grossman (1972), health is a crucial contributor to a person’s stock of human capital, the changing bundle of individual skills, knowledge and capabilities that everyone possesses (other contributors to human capital are; work experience, training and motivation). Human capital is a key determinant of maternal labour market outcomes and wealth accumulation as it is expected to be positively associated with maternal productivity and the schooling of children. Hence, the recognition of the central role of human capital in labour market outcomes and HAE has made it the focus of government policies which aim to lift MLFP and increase asset endowments. The rationale behind this type of policy is that, by endowing children and mothers with more human capital, through better medical care; illness prevention, detection and treatment and more education and training, both labour demand and labour supply will be stimulated.
      As a component of human capital, child health is a key factor in the creation of wealth (Lucas, 1993; Mwabu, 1998). Although the relationship between health and wealth realized in terms of productivity appears to be simple and straight forward at the surface, the underlying process and intricacies behind this relationship are quite complicated and complex in nature, both conceptually and methodologically. Being an intrinsic factor, it is difficult to conceptualize health status and its relationship on individual behaviour. There is a strong, positive correlation between wealth and health. It is possible that broadly defined health expenditures, such as smoking decisions, exercise; diet and preventative medical care (such as consumption of cholesterol drugs) indeed affect health (De Nardi et al., 2010).
      The link between health and labour force participation is such that; firstly poor child health may lead to a reduced likelihood of labour force participation for several reasons: Child disability can cause absenteeism and impair motivation and performance at work (Waghorn and Lloyd, 2005). Prolonged absenteeism might eventually lead to complete withdrawal from the labour market. Mothers with depression due to child ill health might also face limited employment opportunities if an episode of impaired motivation is interpreted by employers as reflecting a low overall motivation level (Waghorn and Lloyd, 2005) or if employers ascribe low motivation to everyone who suffers from depression. Mothers with anxiety disorders also face employment restrictions. Thus, using 1998 Australian data, Waghorn and Lloyd (2005) found that the most commonly cited employment restrictions for people with anxiety disorders are, in order of importance: restrictions on the type of job performed; the need for a support person; difficulty in changing jobs and a limitation on the number of hours worked.
      Based on cross-country data, it was also mentioned that better health status from an individual point of view means better utilization of labour power, which implies enhanced productivity (Kumar and Mitra, 2009). Health is found to have a causal effect on economic

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