Abstract:
This paper studies factors that affect health and the nutritional status of
children under the age of five. It attempts to identify the impact of socioeconomic
factors such as household characteristics, parental education, community-level infrastructure
and health knowledge on the health (measured by height and weight) of
children. The study’s theoretical framework is based on the household production
model and the instrumental variable technique has been implemented for estimation.
Household income, illness from diarrhea and vitamin A supplements for children are
treated as endogenous variables and have been instrumented. The paper uses data
from Pakistan—Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) for 2007/08 for Punjab
which is a household level dataset gathered by the Punjab Bureau of Statistics. The
results suggest that maternal education, health knowledge and household characteristics
are important determinants of child health, among other significant indicators.
The channel through which maternal education affects child health is considered to be
better nurturing and healthcare since the income effect of education is controlled by
household income. Household characteristics—income, the number of household
members, ownership of durables—prove to significantly affect the health of children
in that household. Another important finding of this paper is that female children
under five have better height and weight z-scores than their male counterparts. This
finding rejects the common presumption of gender bias at the household level in
South Asia in early years of life.
