Page 53 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.78, # 2, 2021, pp. 43-62

Based on these one can be tempted to say the biological system of the inhabitance of
these areas is immune to the water supply especially for the matured rural dwellers.
In the period 2006 – 2011, during which the data was collected and most children in
the survey were given birth to, precipitation had a maximum variation with the
minimum being 216.3562 millimeters and maximum rainfall within this period
being 941.0812 millimeters. This precipitation mostly varied according to the height
of the altitude and the ecological zone with the highest altitude being 2072 meters.

About 4.7 percent of households have tap water in their homes, this figure seem
right in the sense that only 40 percent of the households lives in urban centers with a
total household size of 10.47 headed by male with a total of 86 percent. Among
these households, about 54 percent are non-poor and endow with a literacy rate of
42.8 percent with children ranging from 0 to 59 months of age. The birth interval of
households in Cameroon following the 2004/2011 DHS is 29.32 giving a fertility
rate of 37 percent with about 89.4 mothers engage in antenatal care, 54.7
consciously breast feeding their children. In this, 88 percent of the women are
married while 68 percent are currently participating in the job market.

The sample statistics of female children reveal that in a total of 9983 observations,
17.6 percent of the female children were ill or died because of diarrhea or diarrhea
related diseases. While in a sample of 9874 observations about 17.7 percent of male
children suffered from diarrhea or diarrhea related diseases. The values of the male
and female children are fairly the same, depicting the fact that diarrhea is a major
problem for all the children and so a cause for concern for all families with children.
The percentage for other variables are equally fairly the same, however, many male
children seem to be born in the urban centers as compared to the female and with a
bigger household size. This can be explain by the higher survival rate of children in
urban zones due to either better water supply or medical facilities, the favourable
maternal and paternal characteristics such as better education, wealth and prenatal
care contribute to reduce or avoid diarrhea disease.

5.2 Determinants of Household Access to Portable Water
As seen in table 2, the results of the reduced form equation which actually portrays
the determinants of household access to portable water and particularly the effect of
rainfall characteristics. Rainfall generally increases the volume of water supply in
households, but unfortunately it reduces the quality in terms of water consumption.
This explains why its effect on access to portable water is negative but significantly
correlating. When even the volume of water supply increases and in poor quality;
households resolve to consuming alternative sources such as mineral water.

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