Does Women's Empowerment Reduce Prevalence of Stunted and Underweight Children in Rural India?

Katsushi Imai, Samuel Annim, Raghav Gaiha and Veena S. Kulkarni
Additional contact information
Raghav Gaiha: Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi, India
Veena S. Kulkarni: Arkansas State University, USA

No DP2012-11, Discussion Paper Series from Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University

Abstract: This study investigates whether mother's empowerment as measured by mother's relative (to father) bargaining power affects children's nutritional status using the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) data spanning the period between 1992 and 2006. First, the relative bargaining index defined as the share of mother's schooling years over father's schooling years positively and significantly influences z scores pertaining to the short-term measures of nutritional status of children, 'weight-for-age' and 'weight- for-height'-. The results of quantile regression suggest, however, that the bargaining power will improve the chronic measure of nutritional status 'height-for-age', at the low end of conditional distribution of z score.. Further, we find that access to health scheme or health insurance and health-related facility, infrastructure and environment are important factors in reducing child malnutrition.

Keywords: Child Nutrition; Malnutrition; Empowerment; Bargaining; NFHS; NCAER; Quantile Regressions; Pseudo Panel; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 C23 C26 I14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2012-03, Revised 2012-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-dev and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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https://www.rieb.kobe-u.ac.jp/academic/ra/dp/English/DP2012-11.pdf Revised version, 2012 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Does Women's Empowerment Reduce Prevalence of Stunted and Underweight Children in Rural India? (2013)
Working Paper: Does Women’s Empowerment Reduce Prevalence of Stunted and Underweight Children in Rural India? (2012)
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