The Impact of school meals on school participation: Evidence from rural India

Farzana Afridi

Indian Statistical Institute, Planning Unit, New Delhi Discussion Papers from Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, India

Abstract: This paper assesses the effect of transition from monthly distribution of free food grains to the daily provision of free cooked meals to school children on enrollments and attendance in a rural area of India. School panel data allow a difference-in-differences estimation strategy to address possible endogeneity of program placement. The results suggest that program transition had a significant impact on improving the daily participation rates of children in lower grades. The average monthly attendance rate of girls in grade 1 was more than 12 percentage points higher while there was a positive but insignificant effect on grade 1 boys' attendance rate. The impact on enrollment levels was insignificant.

Keywords: school meals; attendance; enrollment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I28 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-edu and nep-ure
Date: 2010-02
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