Malnutrition and female political representation in India
Parul Tyagi, Philippe LeMay-Boucher
TL;DR
The paper finds that increasing women's political representation in India can reduce child malnutrition by improving access to health and basic amenities.
Contribution
The study provides novel evidence linking female political representation to improved child nutrition outcomes in India.
Findings
A ten-percentage point increase in women's political representation reduces the likelihood of a child being underweight by three to five percentage points.
Greater female political representation improves access to prenatal, birth, and postnatal care for mothers.
Abstract
Malnutrition casts a negative shadow over the course of the lives of a fifth of children under the age of five who are stunted worldwide. Despite two decades of growth, India has one of the highest wasting and stunting rates. Lack of political awareness and poor governance, arguably related to an acute underrepresentation of women in politics in India may explain why not enough is committed to this matter. Increasing women’s political agency in elected bodies has brought several documented benefits yet little is known about its impact on children’s nutrition outcomes. Our analysis shows that increasing women’s political representation in India’s state legislatures could reduce child malnutrition. We use a large cross-sectional district representative household survey collected between 2002−4 through the second round of the District Level Household Survey. It is merged with detailed…
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Taxonomy
TopicsGender Politics and Representation · Social and Economic Development in India · Child Nutrition and Water Access