Women’s empowerment, household dietary diversity, and child anthropometry among vulnerable populations in Odisha, India

Ogutu, S and Mockshell, J and Garrett, J and Ritter, T and Labarta, R and Alvarez, D and Nedumaran, S and Gonzalez, C and Gotor, E (2024) Women’s empowerment, household dietary diversity, and child anthropometry among vulnerable populations in Odisha, India. PLOS ONE (TSI), 19 (8). pp. 1-19. ISSN 1932-6203

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Abstract

Women’s empowerment has been promoted by researchers and development practitioners as one of the most promising strategies to address widespread hunger and malnutrition. However, the relationship between women’s empowerment and dietary diversity and child nutrition has rarely been studied among vulnerable populations or individuals at greater risk of poor physical and social health status. Moreover, the effects of different domains of women’s empowerment on nutritional outcomes, including dietary diversity and child anthropometry, have rarely been examined, especially with panel data. Using two rounds of panel data from 1900 households and fixed effects regression models, we analyze the effect of women’s empowerment on household dietary diversity score (HDDS) and child anthropometry among the particularly vulnerable tribal groups in Odisha, India. We also estimate the effects of various decision-making domains of women’s empowerment on HDDS and child anthropometry to understand which empowerment domains matter for nutrition. Results show that women’s empowerment is positively associated with HDDS (coef. 0.41 food groups; p < 0.1) and reduces the prevalence of underweight (coef. 39%; p < 0.05) and wasting (coef. 56%; p < 0.1) in children but has no effect on the prevalence of child stunting. Women’s empowerment in agricultural input use; output sales; income; food purchases; and credit, group membership, and employment contribute to improved dietary diversity and child nutrition. We conclude that women’s empowerment contributes to improved dietary diversity and child nutrition and is a promising strategy to improve farm household diets and child nutrition among vulnerable populations. Strengthening women’s empowerment through the promotion of women’s access to land and other agricultural inputs, market participation, access to information, capital, and credit is important.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Global Research Program - Resilient Farm and Food Systems
CRP:	UNSPECIFIED
Uncontrolled Keywords:	child anthropometry, household dietary diversity, Women empowerment, Food and Nutrition, Odisha, India
Subjects:	Others > Odisha Others > Food and Nutrition Others > India
Depositing User:	Mr Nagaraju T
Date Deposited:	20 Dec 2024 05:45
Last Modified:	20 Dec 2024 05:45
URI:	http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/12890
Official URL:	https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.13...
Projects:	UNSPECIFIED
Funders:	UNSPECIFIED
Acknowledgement:	This research was financially supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) as part of the project “Linking Research to Impact: Increasing the effectiveness of Agriculture and Food Systems in Improving Nutrition” under IFAD grant number 2000001514, sub-grant number L21ROM106, CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), and the CGIAR research initiative on National Policies and Strategies (NPS), which is grateful for the support of CGIAR Trust Fund contributors. JG and JM received the funding for this research. IFAD collected the baseline survey data and shared with the authors. The authors also acknowledge Tisorn Songsermsawas, Vibhuti Mendiratta and Romina Cavatassi from the Research and Impact Assessment Division at IFAD, Frew Behabtu from the IFAD India Country Office, the OPELIP Programme's Management Unit, and ICRISAT staff for their research cooperation. The authors are thankful for the support received from Ravi Nandi in coordinating the midline data collection during his work at ICRISAT-India. They also thank the survey firm HDI for leading the midline data collection efforts. The midline survey was conducted by the research team with funding from IFAD. Many thanks to Kashi Kafle and Rui Benfica for leading the efforts to collect the baseline data. Kashi and Rui worked on the baseline survey when they were IFAD staff members. The baseline survey data collected by IFAD was shared with the project team for the research.
Links:	Google Scholar

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