IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ess/wpaper/id10874.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Mixture as Before? Student Responses to the Changing Content of School Meals in India

Author

Listed:
  • Rohini Somanathan
  • Bidisha Barooah
  • Farzana Afridi

Abstract

We study how attendance rates of primary school children respond to cost neutral changes in the design of India’s school meal program. Municipal schools in the capital region of Delhi switched from packaged food to on-site cooked meals in 2003, with insignificant changes in the budget available per meal. We use the staggered implementation of this transition and child-level panel data to find that cooked meals resulted in a 3-4 percentage point rise in average monthly attendance with the largest effects observed for early grades. The impact on girls was especially large, but since they attend morning shift schools while boys attend the afternoon shifts, these gender effects may simply reflect benefits from better timed meals. We also find attendance gains concentrated in schools that served diverse menus. Our results suggest that even within constrained budgets, better designed school transfer programs can improve student level outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Rohini Somanathan & Bidisha Barooah & Farzana Afridi, 2016. "The Mixture as Before? Student Responses to the Changing Content of School Meals in India," Working Papers id:10874, eSocialSciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:10874
    Note: Institutional Papers
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.esocialsciences.org/Articles/show_Article.aspx?acat=InstitutionalPapers&aid=10874
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Afridi, Farzana, 2010. "Child welfare programs and child nutrition: Evidence from a mandated school meal program in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 152-165, July.
    2. Abhijeet Singh & Albert Park & Stefan Dercon, 2014. "School Meals as a Safety Net: An Evaluation of the Midday Meal Scheme in India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(2), pages 275-306.
    3. Ravallion, Martin & Wodon, Quentin, 2000. "Does Child Labour Displace Schooling? Evidence on Behavioural Responses to an Enrollment Subsidy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 158-175, March.
    4. Harounan Kazianga & Damien de Walque & Harold Alderman, 2012. "Educational and Child Labour Impacts of Two Food-for-Education Schemes: Evidence from a Randomised Trial in Rural Burkina Faso-super- †," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 21(5), pages -760, November.
    5. Paul Schultz, T., 2004. "School subsidies for the poor: evaluating the Mexican Progresa poverty program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 199-250, June.
    6. Behrman, Jere R & Sengupta, Piyali & Todd, Petra, 2005. "Progressing through PROGRESA: An Impact Assessment of a School Subsidy Experiment in Rural Mexico," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(1), pages 237-275, October.
    7. Rajshri Jayaraman & Dora Simroth, 2015. "The Impact of School Lunches on Primary School Enrollment: Evidence from India's Midday Meal Scheme," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 117(4), pages 1176-1203, October.
    8. Harold Alderman & Daniel O. Gilligan & Kim Lehrer, 2012. "The Impact of Food for Education Programs on School Participation in Northern Uganda," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(1), pages 187-218.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Chandana Maitra & Vani Sethi & Sayeed Unisa & Sriram Shankar, 2019. "Household Food Insecurity and Maternal and Child Nutritional Status: Evidence from Maharashtra," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(S1), pages 63-101, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Farzana Afridi & Bidisha Barooah & Rohini Somanathan, 2016. "Student responses to the changing content of school meals in India," Working papers 264, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    2. Roxana Elena Manea, 2021. "School Feeding Programmes, Education and Food Security in Rural Malawi," CIES Research Paper series 63-2020, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    3. Chakraborty, Tanika & Jayaraman, Rajshri, 2019. "School feeding and learning achievement: Evidence from India's midday meal program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 249-265.
    4. Roxana Elena Manea, 2020. "School Feeding Programmes, Education and Food Security in Rural Malawi," CIES Research Paper series 63-2020, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    5. David K. Evans & Arkadipta Ghosh, 2008. "Prioritizing Educational Investments in Children in the Developing World," Working Papers WR-587, RAND Corporation.
    6. Kate Ambler & Diego Aycinena & Dean Yang, 2015. "Channeling Remittances to Education: A Field Experiment among Migrants from El Salvador," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 207-232, April.
    7. David K. Evans & Arkadipta Ghosh, 2008. "Prioritizing Educational Investments in Children in the Developing World," Working Papers 587, RAND Corporation.
    8. Jaime A. Meza‐Cordero & Michaela Gulemetova, 2023. "Re‐evaluating the behavioral change from conditional cash transfers: Evidence from the Avancemos National Program in Costa Rica," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(1), pages 29-47, March.
    9. Schady, Norbert & Araujo, Maria Caridad, 2006. "Cash transfers, conditions, school enrollment, and child work : evidence from a randomized experiment in Ecuador," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3930, The World Bank.
    10. Richard Akresh & Damien de Walque & Harounan Kazianga, 2013. "Cash Transfers and Child Schooling: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation of the Role of Conditionality," Economics Working Paper Series 1301, Oklahoma State University, Department of Economics and Legal Studies in Business.
    11. Kozhaya, Mireille & Martínez Flores, Fernanda, 2020. "Child Education and Work: Evidence from Mexico's Full-Time School Program," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224567, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Jorge Valero‐Gil & Magali Valero, 2022. "Why has there been a fall in child labour and an increase in school attendance in Mexico?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 40(6), November.
    13. Kozhaya, Mireille & Martinez Flores, Fernanda, 2020. "Schooling and child labor: Evidence from Mexico's full-time school program," Ruhr Economic Papers 851, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    14. Kaur, Randeep, 2021. "Estimating the impact of school feeding programs: Evidence from mid day meal scheme of India," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    15. Drèze, Jean & Khera, Reetika, 2017. "Recent Social Security Initiatives in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 555-572.
    16. Deon Filmer & Norbert Schady, 2008. "Getting Girls into School: Evidence from a Scholarship Program in Cambodia," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(3), pages 581-617, April.
    17. Jere R. Behrman & Susan W. Parker & Petra E. Todd, 2011. "Do Conditional Cash Transfers for Schooling Generate Lasting Benefits?: A Five-Year Followup of PROGRESA/Oportunidades," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(1), pages 93-122.
    18. Independent Evaluation Group, 2014. "Social Safety Nets and Gender : Learning from Impact Evaluations and World Bank Projects," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21365.
    19. Shi, Xinzheng, 2012. "Does an intra-household flypaper effect exist? Evidence from the educational fee reduction reform in rural China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 459-473.
    20. Bao, Yanxi & Liao, Tingxuan, 2024. "Multidimensional poverty and growth: Evidence from India 1998–2021," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    primary school children; school meal program; India; Municipal schools; packaged food; cooked meals; implementation; panel data; transition; attendance gains; constrained budget; school transfer; student level programs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • F01 - International Economics - - General - - - Global Outlook

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ess:wpaper:id:10874. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Padma Prakash (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.esocialsciences.org .

    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.