The Hidden Divide: A Note on the Significance of Within-India Stunting Disparities

Ashwini Deshpande () and Rajesh Ramachandran ()
Additional contact information
Ashwini Deshpande: Ashoka University
Rajesh Ramachandran: Monash University Malaysia

Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, 2024, vol. 7, issue 4, No 7, 285-293

Abstract: Abstract India and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are home to 70% of the globe’s stunted children. We show that, one, the oft-explored paradox of higher stunting incidence in relatively richer India compared to the poorer countries of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) masks the much larger gaps between major social groups (caste and tribe) in India. Two, when restricting the comparison to the non-stigmatized caste group children to the SSA children, the paradox disappears. Three, accounting for factors identified as explaining the India-SSA height gradient together can explain at most half of the differences among the caste groups in India. Our findings suggest that accounting for the role of caste or social identity is crucial in combating childhood stunting in India.

Keywords: Caste; India; Sub-Saharan Africa; Stunting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41996-024-00161-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:joerap:v:7:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s41996-024-00161-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... policy/journal/41996

DOI: 10.1007/s41996-024-00161-3

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy is currently edited by Gary A. Hoover

More articles in Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().