Socioeconomic Determinants of Child Health - Empirical Evidence from Indonesia

Subha Mani

Fordham Economics Discussion Paper Series from Fordham University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper characterizes the socioeconomic determinants of child health using height-for-age z-score (HAZ) - a long-run measure of chronic nutritional deficiency. We construct a panel data set that follows children between 3 and 59 months in 1993 through the 1997 and 2000 waves of the Indonesian Family Life Survey. We use this data to identify the various child level, household level and community level factors that affect children’s health. Our findings indicate that household income has a large and statistically significant role in explaining improvements in HAZ. We also find a strong positive association between parental height and HAZ. At the community level, we find that provision of electricity and availability of a paved road is positively associated with improvements in HAZ. Finally, in comparison to community level factors, household level characteristics have a large role in explaining the variation in HAZ. These findings suggest that policies that address the demand side constraints will have a greater potential to improve children's health outcomes in the future.

Keywords: Child health; Panel data; Indonesia; Height (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 I10 O12 R20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-dev, nep-hea, nep-sea and nep-spo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Journal Article: Socioeconomic Determinants of Child Health: Empirical Evidence from Indonesia (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:frd:wpaper:dp2013-07

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