Child Nutrition in India in the Nineties
Abstract
India experienced several years of fast economic growth during the 1990s, and according
to many observers this period also saw a considerable decline in poverty, especially
in urban areas. We use data from two rounds of the National Family and Health Survey
to evaluate changes in nutritional status between 1992-93 and 1998-99 among children
of age 0 to 3. We find that measures of short-term nutritional status based on weight
given height show large improvements, especially in urban areas. Height-forage, an
indicator of long-term nutritional status, also shows improvements, but limited to
urban areas. However, we also document that the changes in nutritional status were
much more favorable for boys than for girls. The gender differences in the changes
over time appear to be driven by states in North India, where the existence of widespread
son preference has been documented by an immense body of research.
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