Calorie Consumption and Wages: Evidence from India’s Labor Market

Kaushalendra Kumar, Ashish Singh, Santosh Kumar Gautam () and Abhishek Singh
Additional contact information
Kaushalendra Kumar: International Institute for Population Sciences
Ashish Singh: Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Santosh Kumar Gautam: University of Notre Dame
Abhishek Singh: International Institute for Population Sciences

No 18100, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Using nationally representative data from India, this study estimates the effect of calorie intake on wages. To account for endogeneity and heterogeneity, we apply Instrumental Variable and Instrumental Variable Quantile Regression methods. Results suggest that higher calorie consumption positively affects workers’ wages. A 10% increase in per capita calorie intake per day leads to a 2.5% increase in daily wages. The wage effect varies by occupation type and across the wage distribution; the marginal effect of calorie intake on wage is higher at lower quantiles of the wage distribution and for non-elementary workers. Our findings highlight the need for nutritional supplementation, particularly for workers at low and median wage levels, to maximize the wage gains from nutritional public policies.

Keywords: wages; 2SLS; calorie; instrumental variable quantile regression; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I15 J24 J31 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-lma
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Economic Modelling, 2025, 152, 107279

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp18100.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18100

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().