Women empowerment and its impact on child malnutrition
Student name: Mr Abhishek Joseph Pulikunnel
Guide: Dr Nidhi Pande
Year of completion: 2012
Host Organisation: TERI University
Abstract: Despite having rapid economic progress in the last few years, India is still plagued with child
malnutrition across the country. According to NFHS data, more than two fifths of the
children in our country are suffering from malnutrition. In fact, India has a higher
malnutrition rate than all the other Sub-Saharan countries. More commonly known as the
“Asian Enigmaâ€, this phenomenon paints a dismal picture, especially since India leads all
the others in other socio-demographic and development indicators. It is with this in mind that
the government has initiated various programmes to reduce the prevalence of child
malnutrition in the country.
It has succeeded, but only so far as to reducing the absolute numbers. India still has not
substantially reduced it to desired levels. Faced with poor implementation of policies and
programmes, an effort has been taken to identify new pathways to achieve lower levels of
malnutrition levels. One of the pathways identified in recent literature has identified women
status as a significant factor which impedes woman in providing quality care to their
children. The paper seeks to identify as to what extent this hold true in India and to exactly
which characteristics of woman status determine child malnutrition status. It further seeks to
identify whether initiatives taken by the government to empower women have been successful.
For this purpose, data from NFHS-3 (2005-06) has been taken.
The paper uses a simple OLS regression and a logit regression model to estimate the
significance of various factors on their impact in reducing the prevalence of child
malnutrition. Woman status, both at the household level and the societal level, turn out to be
significant in reducing child malnutrition in India. Also, steps taken by the government have
had a significant impact in improving women status.
