Household Food Security in Bangladesh: Going beyond Poverty Measures

Atonu Rabbani ()
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Atonu Rabbani: Assistant Professor, Postal: Department of Economics,University of Dhaka.

Bangladesh Development Studies, 2014, vol. 37, issue 1-2, 101-125

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze changes in the dietary diversity scores of the Bangladeshi population over time. Our results show that although there was a clear increase in real per capital consumption expenditure in Bangladesh between 2005 and 2010, the dietary diversity of Bangladeshis showed no sign of improvement over the same period. Moreover, while poor families typically report a lower dietary diversity than non-poor households, irrespectively of their poverty status, households in Bangladesh limit their food consumption to an inadequate number of food items. Unlike dietary diversity, dietary vulnerability is significantly more prevalent among poor households, suggesting that point-in-time measures of consumption are likely to underestimate chronic deprivation in dietary quality. Given the importance of dietary adequacy and vulnerability, particularly among women and children, we conclude that the policy dialogue should pay special attention to the dietary patterns of the Bangladeshi population, going beyond the focus on short-term expenditure-based measures of nutritional status.

Keywords: Poverty; Food Security; Dietary Diversity Score; Bangladesh (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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