Mother’s autonomy and child anemia: A case study from India

Rita Ray

Children and Youth Services Review, 2020, vol. 112, issue C

Abstract: Despite a steady economic growth for last two decades and various public health policies aimed at improving children’s health, almost 60% of Indian children below age five were anemic in 2015–2016. I examine the association between the mother’s autonomy and childhood anemia by using data from the Demographic and Health Survey of 2005–2006 and 2015–2016. The mother’s autonomy index is constructed by applying Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on three components of the mother’s decision-making power: large household purchases; visits to relatives and friends; and spending her husband’s money. This paper extends the discussion by examining the association with religion, caste, children’s gender and state’s child sex ratio. This paper finds higher hemoglobin levels among certain groups of children those whose mothers have autonomy: entire sample; those who practice the Hindu religion; those who are members of the Dalit caste; for male children in the entire sample; for both female and male children in states with child sex ratio lower than national average and only for male children in states with child sex ratio higher than national average. The association are statistically significant only in 2005–2006 for female children for the entire sample and only in 2015–2016 for Muslims.

Keywords: Mother’s autonomy; Child anemia; Hemoglobin level (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740919302294
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:cysrev:v:112:y:2020:i:c:s0190740919302294

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.104537

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().