IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/icr/wpicer/31-2002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Role of Maternal Literacy in Reducing the Risk of Child Malnutrition in India

Author

Listed:
  • Vani K. Borooah

Abstract

This study uses unit-record data on over 50,000 rural children, from the sixteen major states of India, to analyse the determinants of the risks of severe stunting and of being severely underweight. The importance of this study derives from the fact that the prevalence of under-nourishment in India is, even relative to other poor countries, shockingly high. The study focuses on the role of maternal literacy in reducing the risk of child malnourishment. It concludes that when the mother is literate, real benefits flow to children in terms of reduced risk; the same benefits, however, do not flow when the father, but not the mother, is literate. Literate mothers make more effective use of health-care institutions, like anganwadis and hospitals. Consequently, the benefits to children from expanding the supply of such institutions are greater when these institutions interact with mothers who are literate.

Suggested Citation

  • Vani K. Borooah, 2002. "The Role of Maternal Literacy in Reducing the Risk of Child Malnutrition in India," ICER Working Papers 31-2002, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:icr:wpicer:31-2002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bemservizi.unito.it/repec/icr/wp2002/borooah31-02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lavy, Victor & Strauss, John & Thomas, Duncan & de Vreyer, Philippe, 1996. "Quality of health care, survival and health outcomes in Ghana," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 333-357, June.
    2. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, June.
    3. Vani Borooah, 2000. "The Welfare of Children in Central India: Econometric Analysis and Policy Simulation," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 263-287.
    4. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon & Jeemol Unni, 2001. "Education and Women's Labour Market Outcomes in India," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 173-195.
    5. Basu, Kaushik & Foster, James E, 1998. "On Measuring Literacy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(451), pages 1733-1749, November.
    6. Smith, Lisa C. & Haddad, Lawrence James, 2000. "Explaining child malnutrition in developing countries: a cross-country analysis," Research reports 111, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    7. Borooah, Vani, 2003. "Births, Infants and Children: an Econometric Portrait of Women and Children in India," MPRA Paper 19620, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Duncan Thomas & John Strauss & Maria-Helena Henriques, 1991. "How Does Mother's Education Affect Child Height?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(2), pages 183-211.
    9. Foster, Andrew D & Rosenzweig, Mark R, 1996. "Technical Change and Human-Capital Returns and Investments: Evidence from the Green Revolution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 931-953, September.
    10. Behrman, Jere R & Wolfe, Barbara L, 1984. "The Socioeconomic Impact of Schooling in a Developing Country," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 66(2), pages 296-303, May.
    11. Thomas, Duncan & Strauss, John, 1992. "Prices, infrastructure, household characteristics and child height," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 301-331, October.
    12. Gibson, John, 2001. "Literacy and Intrahousehold Externalities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 155-166, January.
    13. 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.
    14. Caldwell, John C., 1993. "Health transition: The cultural, social and behavioural determinants of health in the Third World," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 125-135, January.
    15. Behrman, Jere R. & Deolalikar, Anil B., 1988. "Health and nutrition," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 631-711, Elsevier.
    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. Di Tommaso, Maria Laura, 2007. "Children capabilities: A structural equation model for India," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 436-450, June.
    2. Rolando Morales & Ana María Aguilar & Alvaro Calzadilla, 2005. "Desnutrición en Bolivia: la geografía y la cultura sí importan," Research Department Publications 3186, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    3. Rolando Morales & Ana María Aguilar & Alvaro Calzadilla, 2005. "Undernutrition in Bolivia: Geography and Culture Matter," Research Department Publications 3185, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    4. Webb, Patrick & Block, Steven, 2004. "Nutrition Information and Formal Schooling as Inputs to Child Nutrition," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(4), pages 801-820, July.
    5. Patrick Webb & Steven Block, 2003. "Nutrition Knowledge and Parental Schooling as Inputs to Child Nutrition in the Long and Short Run," Working Papers in Food Policy and Nutrition 21, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
    6. Morales, Rolando & Aguilar, Ana Maria & Calzadilla, Alvaro, 2004. "Geography and culture matter for malnutrition in Bolivia," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 373-390, December.

    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. Borooah, Vani, 2009. "Maternal Literacy and Child Malnutrition in India," MPRA Paper 19833, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Borooah, Vani K., 2004. "Gender bias among children in India in their diet and immunisation against disease," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(9), pages 1719-1731, May.
    3. Vani Borooah & Sriya Iyer, 2005. "Vidya, Veda, and Varna: The influence of religion and caste on education in rural India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(8), pages 1369-1404.
    4. Borooah, Vani K., 2004. "On the incidence of diarrhoea among young Indian children," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 119-138, March.
    5. Borooah, Vani K., 2005. "The height-for-age of Indian children," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 45-65, March.
    6. Francesco Burchi, 2012. "Whose education affects a child’s nutritional status? From parents' to household's education," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 27(23), pages 681-704.
    7. Basu, Kaushik & Narayan, Ambar & Ravallion, Martin, 2001. "Is literacy shared within households? Theory and evidence for Bangladesh," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(6), pages 649-665, December.
    8. Lindelow, Magnus, 2004. "Health care decisions as a family matter - intra-household education externalities and the utilization of health services," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3324, The World Bank.
    9. Gibson, John, 2001. "Literacy and Intrahousehold Externalities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 155-166, January.
    10. Gragnolati, Michele, 1999. "Children's growth and poverty in rural Guatemala," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2193, The World Bank.
    11. Basu, Kaushik & Narayan, Ambar & Ravallion, Martin, 1999. "Is knowledge shared within households?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2261, The World Bank.
    12. Penders, Christopher L. & Staatz, John M., 2001. "The Impact Of Household Level Determinants Of Child Health And Nutrition: Cross-Country Evidence From West Africa," Staff Paper Series 11579, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    13. Subha Mani, 2014. "Socioeconomic Determinants of Child Health: Empirical Evidence from Indonesia," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 28(1), pages 81-104, March.
    14. Thomas, Duncan & Lavy, Victor & Strauss, John, 1996. "Public policy and anthropometric outcomes in the Cote d'Ivoire," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 155-192, August.
    15. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2859-2939 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Alejandro Ramirez & Gustav Ranis, 1997. "Economic Growth and Human Development," Working Papers 787, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    17. Hoddinott, John, 1997. "Water, health, and income," FCND discussion papers 25, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    18. Indunil De Silva & Sudarno Sumarto, 2018. "Child Malnutrition in Indonesia: Can Education, Sanitation and Healthcare Augment the Role of Income?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 837-864, July.
    19. Headey, Derek & Hoddinott, John & Ali, Disha & Tesfaye, Roman & Dereje, Mekdim, 2015. "The Other Asian Enigma: Explaining the Rapid Reduction of Undernutrition in Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 749-761.
    20. Husain, Zakir & Dutta, Mousumi & Ghosh, Sriparna, 2011. "Contraceptive use among illiterate women in India: does proximate illiteracy matter?," MPRA Paper 30790, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Gustav Ranis & Frances Stewart, 2000. "Strategies for Success in Human Development," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(1), pages 49-69.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:icr:wpicer:31-2002. 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: Daniele Pennesi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/icerrit.html .

    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.