women’s status and children’s height in india: evidence from joint rural households diane...
TRANSCRIPT
women’s status and
children’s height in India:
evidence from joint rural households
Diane Coffey, Reetika Khera &
Dean Spearsphoto credit: Kyle Merrit Ludowitz
Indian children are short
• Indian children under 5 years old, are, on average, 2 standard deviations below the heights of children in the international reference population (NFHS 2005)
• for a 5 year old girl, this is a deficit of about 10 centimeters, or 3.9 inches
introduction
height, health, and wealth
• height is a summary measure of early life health
• height in childhood is correlated with height in adulthood (Waterlow, 2011)
• height in adulthood is a marker of human capital, economic productivity, and lifespan (Case & Paxson, 2008; Vogl, 2011; Jousilahti et al., 2000)
introduction
why are Indian children so short?
• energy going in: quality and quantity of food– poor nutrition of pregnant and lactating women– young children are fed little and late
• energy coming out: much early life disease– intestinal disease: diarrhea and chronic enteropathy– pneumonia and other infections
• could women’s status be something that contributes to or aggravates these processes?
introduction
prior papers: children’s health reflects women’s health
Ramalingaswami et al., 1996• 36% of Indian women have BMIs below 18.5
(NFHS 2005)• almost 60% of pregnant women are anemic
(NFHS 2005)• weight gain in pregnancy is very low (WHO,
1995; Agarwal et al., 1998)
introduction
prior papers: women’s autonomy
Das Gupta, 1995• in India, women have low status in their
child-bearing years, it grows as they age• cultural norms around behavior in
women’s marital homes mean that they do not seek resources for themselves or their children
introduction
prior papers: it’s hard to identify an effect of women’s status on kids’ health
several papers regress children’s anthropometric indicators on an index of women’s status variables
• omitted variables• women’s status is hard to measure– education?...seems to be different…– some “empowerment” variables may suffer from
reporting problemsintroduction
preview: our strategy
compare the children of higher and lower ranking daughters-in-law in the same household
find that the children of lower ranking daughters-in-law are on average shorter than their cousins born to higher ranking daughters-in-law
provide evidence for our interpretation of this finding as an effect of women’s status on children’s height
introduction
how could mother’s rank within households affect children?
• in utero– pre-natal nutrition and weight gain: a function of
consumption, work, and possibly stress• during breastfeeding
– poor nutrition status may decrease quality of breastfeeding
• ability to get resources for young children– food: getting the right things to eat, and enough of
them– disease: getting treatment
introduction
outlineo background—joint Indian householdso empirical strategyo main results—the children of lower ranking
daughters-in-law are shorter than their cousinso interpretation—women’s status
o confirming lower statusodecision making, mobility & nutrition
o ruling out pre-marriage sortingo ruling out differences in nuclear family resources
introduction
background
background
diagram of a joint household in our sample
older brother
younger brother
children in our sample
household heads
background
fraction of rural households and children under five in the NFHS living in joint households
NFHS 1993 NFHS 1999 NFHS 2006households
no daughters-in-law 0.771 0.788 0.812one daughter-in-law 0.171 0.160 0.149two daughters-in-law 0.045 0.040 0.031more than two daughters-in-law 0.014 0.012 0.007
children under fiveno daughters-in-law 0.664 0.645 0.678one daughter-in-law 0.204 0.225 0.213two daughters-in-law 0.091 0.092 0.082more than two daughters-in-law 0.041 0.039 0.027
background
where are the joint households?
JMHP
PJ
UC
HR
DL
RJ
UP
BH
SKARNAMNMZTRAS
WB
JHORCH
MP
GJ
MH
APKA
GO
KE
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0 .05 .1 .15 .2 .25percent of rural children under five in NFHS-3 data
background
Indian joint households
• are characterized by patriarchy and age-hierarchy (Mandelbaum, 1948)
• older brothers are afforded higher social status than younger brothers (Seymour, 1993)
• daughters-in-law defer to senior members of their marital families
background
rank among daughters-in-law
• a wife inherits her husband’s status in the household, which is determined by his birth order (Singh, 2005)
• there are more people to whom a second daughter-in-law must defer than a first daughter-in-law (Mandelbaum, 2005)
• “senior wives tend to dominate young in-marrying wives” (Dyson & Moore, 1983)
background
empirical strategy
empirical strategy
main regression
• low ranking motherih indicates that the child's mother is the low ranking daughter-in-law
• h is a household fixed effect
• Aih is a vector of 120 age-in-months X sex dummies
empirical strategy
• Dih is a vector of demographic controls about the child– dummy for first born to her mother, single birth,
mother’s age at birth, child’s birth order in joint household
• Mih is a vector of controls about the mother– height, years of education, age at marriage
• Fih is a vector of controls about the father– education, age at survey
empirical strategy
main results
main results
in the same household, are
children of lower ranking
mothers shorter than children
of higher ranking mothers?
main results
nonparametric comparison of children of lower and higher ranking DsIL
main results
children’s height & mother’s rank
main results
why control for child’s age?
main results
children’s height & mother’s rank
main results
demographic controls: are the results driven by direct effects of
household size?
main results
do grandmothers prefer their earlier born grandchildren (or even the first born), regardless of mothers’ status?
could having older cousins increase babies’ exposure to disease?
children’s height & mother’s rank
main results
height difference not due to comparing children of different birth orders
main results
mother controls: do lower ranking wives differ on pre-marriage
characteristics?
main results
could women who are “less fit” to be mothers become lower ranking daughters-in-law?
children’s height & mother’s rank
main results
height difference present for all maternal heights
main results
father controls: could resource differences
between “nuclear families” (within joint families) influence the results?
main results
children’s height & mother’s rank
main results
interpretations
interpretations
1. confirming lower status: decision making, mobility & nutrition
2. ruling out pre-marriage sorting 3. ruling out differences in nuclear
family resources
interpretations: confirming lower status
decision making: say in household decisions
vinterpretations: confirming lower status
in NFHS 3, does the woman have “final say” in decisions related to:• own health care?• large household purchases?• daily purchases?• visits to her relatives and friends?• what to do with the money her husband earns?
regress an indicator for “say” on intrahousehold status using joint household fixed effects
vinterpretations: confirming lower status
decision making: say in household decisions
lower ranking daughters-in-law similarly have less “say” in the NFHS 2
mobility: time spent outside
women‘s mobility, particularly in the public sphere, has been used by other researchers as a measure of status (Rahman & Rao, 2004; Kabeer, 1999)
we analyze data from India Time Use Survey, 1999 – all adults in 12,750 rural households in six states– 1.2% of rural households interviewed (n=312) had two
daughters-in-law– data time use for the “typical” day before the survey
vinterpretations: confirming lower status
mobility: time spent outside
vinterpretations: confirming lower status
mobility: time spent outside
vinterpretations: confirming lower status
nutrition: body mass index
vinterpretations: confirming lower status
low body mass index scores of women in India are an indicator of their malnourishment
low body mass index scores indicate poor pre-natal nutrition, which has been shown to influence children's height (Kusin et al., 1992; Adair, 2007)
nutrition: body mass index
vinterpretations: confirming lower status
h
interpretations: ruling out pre-marriage sorting
no differences on pre-marriage characteristics
vinterpretations: ruling out pre-marriage sorting
interpretations: ruling out differences in nuclear family resources
no differences between brothers
can older brothers contribute more resources to their children’s early life health than younger brothers?
use NFHS 3 men’s survey to look at a representative sample of brothers who live in the same household
vinterpretations: ruling out differences in nuclear family resources
no differences between brothers
vinterpretations: ruling out differences in nuclear family resources
conclusion
conclusion
conclusion
conclusion
• used a novel identification strategy to show the children of lower ranking daughters-in-law are shorter than the children of higher ranking daughters-in-law
• interpreted this difference as evidence that women’s status influences children’s health
• provided evidence that women’s status indeed differs by daughter-in-law’s intrahousehold rank
• ruled out competing explanations for the result
why it matters
conclusion
• little prior well-identified evidence of an effect of women’s status on children’s health
• potentially broad implications for human capital formulation – other manifestations of low women’s status
may also hurt children – other forms of hierarchy may also hurt
children
comments? questions?
photo credit: Gates Foundation
conclusion
comparison of households in our sample with other rural households
background
comparison of children in our sample with other rural children under five
background
ways daughters-in-law defer
• remaining quiet in the presence of senior men and women
• veiling• lowering her gaze• sitting on the floor
photo credit: dinodia.com
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our strategybackground
robustness check: larger sample
main results
no differences on pre-marriage characteristics
vinterpretations: ruling out pre-marriage sorting
are lower ranking daughter-in-laws inferior on pre-marriage characteristics?
regress characteristics of mothers fixed before marriage on intrahousehold rank and household fixed effect
dependent variables: height, education, literacy, age at marriage (from NFHS 3)
nutrition: body mass index
"The person who cooked and the youngest daughter in law, usually the same person, ate last. This acted
against her, even if there was no conscious discrimination. Thus after feeding unexpected guests, the person who ate last, the cook, could prefer to do
without rather than cook again. In middle peasant households, often there could be no vegetables or lentils left and she made do with a pepper paste
and/or raabri. In a situation of deficit she went hungry when other household members did not have to.”
from: Palriwala, 1993 pg. 60
vinterpretations: confirming lower status
potential imitations• identifying an effect within a select subgroup
of households• the coefficient seems large, we hesitate to
interpret it quantitatively literally• would like have more information on the
extent to which joint hh act as nuclear families• no opportunities exist to replicate this in other
comparable Indian datasets as far as we know
conclusion
potential additions
• use NSS employment & unemployment survey to look for differences between brothers’ work
• compare brothers’ time use using the ITUS• your suggestions??
conclusion
