BACKGROUND
The paper engages in the ongoing debate regarding the determinants of child nutrition
in developing countries and stresses the potential contribution of the education of
household members other than the child’s parents.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of the paper is threefold: (1) to verify whether there is evidence of the key role
of parents’ education for children’s nutrition; (2) to explore the possible presence of the
externalities generated by the literacy of household members different from the child’s
parents; (3) to test whether there is difference in the influence of these variables on the
two indicators of child nutrition, child height-for-age and weight-for-age.
METHODS
The determinants of child nutrition were analyzed by estimating a series of econometric
models through OLS regressions applied on data from the 2003 DHS survey in
Mozambique. By means of seemingly unrelated regression together with formal testing
we compared the impact of the covariates on the two outcomes.
RESULTS
In line with previous studies, we find that one year of mother’s education increases their
children’s height-for-age and weight-for-age z-scores by nearly 0.025 and 0.015. The
presence of another literate household member has a significant, though limited, effect
on child height while it has no influence on child weight. Lastly, there is no statistically
significant difference in the effect of parents’ education on the two indicators while our
measure of proximate literacy has a significantly larger impact on child height.
CONCLUSIONS
These findings should orient policy-makers toward income-augmenting and educationenhancing
policies: the importance of non-parents’ literacy opens a further space for
investment in education.