Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:17:55.021Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

HEALTH AND NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF CHILDREN IN ETHIOPIA: DO MATERNAL CHARACTERISTICS MATTER?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 August 2012

ABDU KEDIR SEID
ABDU KEDIR SEID*
Affiliation:
Copenhagen University, Denmark
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

In Ethiopia, despite some recent improvements, the health and nutritional status of children is very poor. A better understanding of the main socioeconomic determinants of child health and nutrition is essential to address the problem and make appropriate interventions. In the present study, an attempt is made to explore the effect of maternal characteristics on the health and nutritional status of under-five children using the 2005 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey. The health and nutritional status of children are measured using the two widely used anthropometric indicators height-for-age (HAZ) and weight-for-height (WHZ). In the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation, it is observed that maternal characteristics have a significant impact on child health and nutritional status. The magnitudes of the coefficients, however, are found to slightly increase when maternal education is instrumented in the 2SLS estimation. Moreover, in the quantile regression (QR) estimation, the impacts of maternal characteristics are observed to vary between long-term and current child health and nutritional status.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , March 2013 , pp. 187 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Admassie, A. (2002) Allocation of Children's Time Endowment Between Schooling and Work in Rural Ethiopia. ZEF Discussion Papers on Development Policy No. 44.Google Scholar
Ahmed, M. & Iqbal, K. (2007) Is There any Threshold in Mother's Education and Child Health Relationship? Evidence from Nigeria. Carleton College Department of Economics Working Paper Series No. 2007-02.Google Scholar
Almedom, A. M. (1991) Aspects of the growth and health of the suckling and weaning infant in Ethiopia. DPhil. thesis, University of Oxford, Oxford.Google Scholar
Angrist, J. D. & Pischke, J. (2009) Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aturupane, H., Deolalikar, A. B. & Gunewardena, D. (2008) The Determinants of Child Weight and Height in Sri Lanka: A Quantile Regression Approach. World Institute for Development Economics Research, Research Paper 2008/53.Google Scholar
Baum, C. F., Schaffer, M. E. & Stillman, S. (2007) Enhanced Routines for Instrumental Variables/GMM Estimation and Testing. Working Paper 667, Boston College Economics.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G. S. (1965) A theory of the allocation of time. Economic Journal 75, 493–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Block, S. (2007) Maternal nutrition knowledge versus schooling as determinants of child micronutrient status. Oxford Economic Papers 59, 330–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borooah, V. K. (2005) The height-for-age of Indian children. Economics and Human Biology 3(1), 45–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burchi, F. (2010) Child nutrition in Mozambique in 2003: the role of mother's schooling and nutrition knowledge. Economics and Human Biology 8(3), 331–345.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cameron, A. C. & Trivedi, P. K. (2009) Micro Econometrics using Stata. Stata Press, StataCorp LP, College station, TX.Google Scholar
Card, D. (2001) Estimating the returns to schooling: progress on some persistent problems. Econometrica 69(5), 1127–1160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Central Statistical Agency & ORC Macro (2006) Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Calverton, MD, USA.Google Scholar
Chiswick, B. & Mircheva, D. (2010) Religion and child health. IZA Discussion Papers 5215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christiansen, L. & Alderman, H. (2004) Child malnutrition in Ethiopia: can maternal knowledge augment the role of income? Economic Development and Cultural Change 52(2), 287–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
David, V., Moncada, M. & Ordonez, F. (2004) Private and public determinants of child nutrition in Nicaragua and Western Honduras. Economics and Human Biology 2, 457–488.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doyle, O., Harmon, C. & Walker, I. (2005) The impact of parental income and education on the health of their children. IZA Discussion Papers 1832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fersterer, J. & Winter-Ebmer, R. (2003) Smoking, discount rates, and returns to education. Economics of Education Review 22, 561–566.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerdtham, U. G., Johannesson, M., Lundberg, L. & Isacson, D. (1999) The demand for health: results from new measures of health capital. European Journal of Political Economy 15, 501–521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Girma, W. & Genebo, T. (2002) Determinants of the Nutritional Status of Mothers and Children in Ethiopia. Ethiopia Health and Nutrition Research Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and ORC Macro, Calverton, MD, USA.Google Scholar
Glewwe, P. (1999) Why does mother's schooling raise child health in developing countries? Evidence from Morocco. Journal of Human Resources 34(1), 124–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, D., Nandi, S., Pantazis, C., Pemberton, S. & Townsend, P. (2003) Child Poverty in the Developing World. The Policy Press, Bristol, UK.Google Scholar
Grossman, M. (1972) The Demand for Health: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation. Columbia University Press for the National Bureau of Economic Research, New York.Google Scholar
Handa, S. (1999) Maternal education and child height. Economic Development and Cultural Change 47(2), 421–439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imbens, G. & Wooldridge, J. (2007) What is New in Econometrics? NBER summer institute. URL: http://www.nber.org/minicourse3.html (accessed November 2011).Google Scholar
Hazarika, G. (2000) Gender differences in children's nutrition and access to health care in Pakistan. Journal of Development Studies 37, 73–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kabubo-Mariara, J., Ndenge, G. & Mwabu, D. (2008) Determinants of children's nutritional status in Kenya: evidence from demographic and health surveys. Journal of African Economies 18(3), 363–387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kebede, B. (2005) Genetic endowments, parental and child health in rural Ethiopia. Scottish Journal of Political Economy 52(2), 194–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koenker, R. & Bassett, G. (1978) Regression quantiles. Econometrica 46(1), 33–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemke, R. & Rischall, I. (2003) Skill, parental income, and IV estimation of the returns to schooling. Applied Economics Letters 10, 281–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medrano, P., Rodríguez, C. & Villa, E. (2008) Does mother's education matter in child's health? Evidence from South Africa. South African Journal of Economics 76(4), 612–627.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ministry of Education (2002) The Education and Training Policy and its Implementation. Ministry of Education of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa.Google Scholar
Nichols, A. (2007) Causal inference with observational data. Stata Journal 7(4), 507–541.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Donell, O., Doorsslaer, E., Wagstaff, A. & Lindelow, M. (2008) Analyzing Health Equity using Household Survey Data: A Guide to Techniques and their Implementations. World Bank.Google Scholar
Pal, S. (1999) An analysis of childhood malnutrition in rural India: role of gender, income and other household characteristics. World Development 27(7), 1151–1171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahn, D. & Alderman, H. (1997) On the determinants of nutrition in Mozambique: the importance of age-specific effects. World Development 25(4), 577–588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahn, D. & Stifel, D. (2002) Parental preferences for nutrition of boys and girls: evidence from Africa. Journal of Development Studies 39(1), 21–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silva, P. (2005) Environmental Factors and Children's Malnutrition in Ethiopia. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3489.Google Scholar
Smith, L. & Haddad, L. (1999) Explaining Child Malnutrition in Developing Countries: A Cross-Country Analysis. International Food Policy Research Institute Discussion Paper No. 60, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Staiger, D. & Stock, J. (1997) Instrumental variables regression with weak instruments. Econometrica 65(3), 557–586.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stock, J. H. & Yogo, M. (2005) Testing for weak instruments in linear IV regression. In Andrews, D. & Stock, J. (eds) Identification and Inference for Econometric Models: Essays in Honor of Thomas Rothenberg. Cambridge University Press, pp. 80–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, D. (1994) Like father, like son; like mother, like daughter: parental resources and child height. Journal of Human Resources 29(4), 950–988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, D., Strauss, J. & Henriques, M. (1991) How does mother's education affect child height? Journal of Human Resources 26(2), 183–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
UNICEF (2011) Ethiopia Statistics. URL: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/ethiopia_statistics.html (accessed November, 2011).Google Scholar
World Bank (2005) Education in Ethiopia: Strengthening the Foundation for Sustainable Progress. World Bank Human Development Department Africa Region.Google Scholar
WHO (1995) Physical Status: The Use and Interpretation of Anthropometry. WHO Technical Report Series 854, Geneva.Google Scholar