Determinants of Malnutrition among Children in Andhra Pradesh, India

This essay looks into two main determinants of child health: income and education, using a panel dataset from India. Impact of per capita consumption expenditure on child nutritional status is investigated using a number of estimation methods including two stage least squares and panel methods. Income effect is found to explain only between 0 to 34 percent of the improvement in child health. Maternal education effect on child nutritional status is found to be stronger in urban areas and among the wealthier. Paternal and community level education are also found to have significant impact on child health. Finally, paternal education is found to have significant positive impact for smaller communities, while maternal education for larger communities.