Privaciones nutricionales: su ví­nculo con la pobreza y el ingreso monetario

Marcelo Bergolo, Martin Leites and Gonzalo Salas

No 06-03, Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) from Instituto de Economía - IECON

Abstract: This study explores empirical differences in poverty analysis under two distinct normative approaches: income poverty and Amartya Sen's capability approach, focusing on nutritional achievement as the main dimension to measure poverty in the latter. The analysis focuses on the association between income poverty and individual deprivation in terms of child malnutrition for those attending the first grade at public institutions in Uruguay. The results from this study will provide evidence on the extent to which the measurement of poverty using monetary methods may approximate other dimensions of human well-being. In addition, this document also analyses the determinants of nutritional achievement for children. To address this last issue, the analysis estimates a production function for nutritional achievements, which allows exploring differences in individual characteristics; and also sheds light on the way in which household income is transformed into nutritional achievements for Uruguayan children. The data for the empirical estimation is drawn from the survey "El estado nutricional de los niños y las polí­ticas alimentarias", carried out by the Instituto de Economí­a de la Universidad de la República (IECON) and supported by CSIC, PNUD y UNICEF, which was directed at households with young children who were attending the first grade at public schools in Uruguay during 2004. The results confirm the relevance of income as a path to well-being. However, the evidence indicates that classifying households as extreme poor according to a monetary definition is not sufficient to approximate their nutritional deprivation. In addition, the findings suggest that nutritional outcomes for children are dependent on a set of individual, household and community factors, which also influence the transformational potential of household monetary resources. Among the factors which stand out are: the level of mother's health –especially their nutritional performance and reproductive history–, children's health, educational level of the household's members and access to a set of public goods.

Keywords: Poverty measure; Sen's capability approach; child malnutrition; Uruguay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I31 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2006-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ulr:wpaper:dt-03-06

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