Whose education affects a child’s nutritional status? From parents' to household's education

Abstract

BACKGROUNDThe paper engages in the ongoing debate regarding the determinants of child nutrition in developing countries and stresses the potential contribution of the education of household members other than the child's parents. OBJECTIVEThe aim of the paper is threefold: (1) to verify whether there is evidence of the key role of parents' education for children's nutrition; (2) to explore the possible presence of the externalities generated by the literacy of household members different from the child's parents; (3) to test whether there is difference in the influence of these variables on the two indicators of child nutrition, child height-for-age and weight-for-age. METHODSThe determinants of child nutrition were analyzed by estimating a series of econometric models through OLS regressions applied on data from the 2003 DHS survey in Mozambique. By means of seemingly unrelated regression together with formal testing we compared the impact of the covariates on the two outcomes. RESULTSIn line with previous studies, we find that one year of mother's education increases their children's height-for-age and weight-for-age z-scores by nearly 0.025 and 0.015. The presence of another literate household member has a significant, though limited, effect on child height while it has no influence on child weight. Lastly, there is no statistically significant difference in the effect of parents' education on the two indicators while our measure of proximate literacy has a significantly larger impact on child height. CONCLUSIONSThese findings should orient policy-makers toward income-augmenting and educationenhancing policies: the importance of non-parents' literacy opens a further space for investment in education.

Inadequate and Excessive Urinary Iodine Concentration in School Age Girls and Women in Makueni, Eastern Kenya

“…Level of education among WRA has been shown to have impact on nutrition status of populations [24]. Findings showed a significant difference between UIC and level of education in women.…”

The Other Asian Enigma: Explaining the Rapid Reduction of Undernutrition in Bangladesh

“…The gender gap in grade attainment that existed in 1997 completely disappeared by 2011; in fact, the DHS data for 2011 show that among parents under the age of 25, mothers have almost one full year of education more than fathers. Given that maternal education has often been strongly linked to nutrition outcomes (Behrman & Wolfe, 1984;Burchi, 2012;Headey, 2013;Ruel & Alderman, 2013), these changes may well have played a role in the reductions in child undernutrition reported above. Consistent with this rapid improvement in women's education, we also find substantial improvement in at least one indicator of women's empowerment collected across all DHS rounds, the percentage of women who report that they can travel to a health clinic by themselves (Table 2).…”

“…In doing so we expand on a growing literature that seeks to explain nutritional change as a function of a wide array of nutrition-sensitive interventions. In addition to the well-documented effects of income on nutrition (Behrman & Deolalikar, 1987;Haddad, Alderman, Appleton, Song, & Yohannes, 2003;Headey, 2013;Heltberg, 2009;Smith & Haddad, 2000), there is various evidence linking nutrition outcomes to education (Burchi, 2012;Headey, 2013;Thomas, Strauss, & Henriques, 1991;Webb & Block, 2004), demography and family planning (Dewey & Cohen, 2007;Headey, 2013;Horton, 1988;Jensen, 2012;Rutstein, 2008), gender empowerment and cultural norms (Jayachandran & Pande, 2013;Pande, 2003), improved sanitation (Humphrey, 2009;Lin et al, 2013;Spears, 2013), and health service utilization (Headey, 2013). Understanding the contribution of such factors to historical changes in nutrition outcomes is an important area of ongoing research, which this paper aims to make a contribution to.…”

Vii. Gender in Low‐ and Middle‐income Countries: Reflections, Limitations, Directions, and Implications

“…Having parents (especially mothers) who are better educated appears to improve the likelihood that children will be better nourished, gain greater access to needed health care, and be offered better educational opportunities (Ahmed, Creanga, Gillespie, & Tsui, 2003;Abuya, Ciera, & Kimani-Murage, 2012;Burchi, 2012;Currie & Moretti, 2003;Wachs, 2008). Maternal education is regularly associated with important caregiving beliefs and behaviors; for example, more-educated parents spend more time with their children (Guryan, Hurst, & Kearney, 2008) and possess more knowledge about childrearing and child development (Bornstein & Hahn, 2014).…”