Human Capital and Water: Assessing the Direct Relationship and the Impact of Urbanization in LDCs and non-LDCs.

This research investigates the household level relationship between human capital and access to safe water and examines how different degrees of urbanisation affect this association. Previous evidence showed that education has a positive impact on health outcomes; however little attention has been paid to understanding the role of human capital on households’ access to safe drinking water particularly in the context of urbanization. Multilevel regression analysis is carried out using household level data from 35 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to examine the association between human capital and access to safe drinking water, adjusting for relevant predictors including contextual/structural variables. The main predictors include household human capital measured in terms of weighted average of years of schooling of the household members in working ages (18-65), and indicators that represent household conditions. The results confirm significant positive influence of human capital on access to safe water with differential effect of urban residence. While overall urban residence and macro-level urban growth have a positive effect on this association, the study finds that the impact of these indicators varies depending on the countries’ level of development.