Socio-Economic Correlates of Children's Nutritional Status: Evidence from Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017-18

Abstract

Nutrition status is an important indicator of child health. This study estimates the effect of socioeconomic determinants on children's nutritional status of under five years of age. We apply the Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure (CIAF) in our empirical analysis as a proxy measure to denote the malnutrition measurement index, and a binary logistic regression model using PDHS dataset for 2017-18. The logistic regression model inspects the probability of malnutrition among children. The result demonstrates that the age of children, education and employment status of mothers, BMI of mothers, assets owned by mothers, tetanus vaccination of mothers, the incidence of diarrhea in children, and household wealth has a significant impact on malnutrition in children. The study concludes that socioeconomic deprivations and inequalities in society play a significant role in determining the health and nutrition of pre-school children.