IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/igdrpp/v2y2009i1p18-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Maternal autonomy and child nutrition

Author

Listed:
  • Diane Dancer
  • Anu Rammohan

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyze the main determinants of child nutrition in rural Nepal, focusing on the influential role of maternal autonomy. Design/methodology/approach - This paper uses data from the 2006 Nepal Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) to estimate econometric models using OLS and logit techniques. The dependent variables are the two anthropometric measures of child weight‐for‐height (a measure of wasting) and height‐for‐age (a measure of stunting). Findings - No evidence was found of gender discrimination against the girl child in either of our nutritional measures. However, our results show that the explanatory variables have differential effects on male and female children. Estimation results show that maternal autonomy variables have a limited influence on child nutrition measures, but household wealth has a large positive impact on child nutrition, both short‐term and long term. Originality/value - The large sample size and the range of questions available in our nationally representative dataset, allows us to explore the influence of household level social and economic factors on child nutrition. A study of the role of maternal decision‐making power and control over assets on the nutritional status of children is an important issue in a developing country like Nepal, where health and education outcomes remain poor for large segments of the population.

Suggested Citation

  • Diane Dancer & Anu Rammohan, 2009. "Maternal autonomy and child nutrition," Indian Growth and Development Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 2(1), pages 18-38, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:igdrpp:v:2:y:2009:i:1:p:18-38
    DOI: 10.1108/17538250910953444
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/17538250910953444/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/17538250910953444/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/17538250910953444?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Karki Nepal, Apsara, 2018. "What matters more for child health: A father’s education or mother’s education?," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 10, pages 24-33.
    2. Kumar, Sumit & Patel, Ratna & Chauhan, Shekhar, 2020. "Does land possession among working women empower them and improve their child health: A study based on National Family Health Survey-4," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    3. Richards, Esther & Theobald, Sally & George, Asha & Kim, Julia C. & Rudert, Christiane & Jehan, Kate & Tolhurst, Rachel, 2013. "Going beyond the surface: Gendered intra-household bargaining as a social determinant of child health and nutrition in low and middle income countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 24-33.
    4. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11404 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Shively, Gerald E. & Gars, Jared & Sununtnasuk, Celeste, 2011. "A Review Of Food Security And Human Nutrition Issues In Nepal," Working papers 116190, Purdue University, Department of Agricultural Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:igdrpp:v:2:y:2009:i:1:p:18-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.