Income-Nutrition Gradient and Intrahousehold Allocation in Rural Pakistan

SignificanceThis study documents the gender bias in income-health relationship for children in rural Pakistan. Our results imply that interventions that target poverty alleviation at the household level may not have equitable impacts on all members of the household because of possible 'son-preference'. This suggests that there is a need to design gender-sensitive interventions to ensure that improvements in nutritional outcomes are shared across genders within households.ObjectiveTo estimate the relationship between household income and child health outcomes for male and female children, aged 0-5 years, in rural Pakistan.MethodThe study uses 2014 round of Pakistan Rural Household Panel Survey (PRHPS) and regression analyses to estimate the relationship between household income and child health outcomes for male and female children in rural Pakistan.Results and Policy ImplicationsWe find that increase in income is associated with an increase in child weight-for-age and weight-for-height z-scores, and reduction in the likelihood of a child being underweight or wasted. However, our results suggest that these gains associated with an increase in income are greater for male children as compared to female children. These differences in income-nutrition gradient can be explained by the gender-differences in consumption of health inputs (e.g., food intake, vaccinations, and nutritional supplements) associated with an increase in income. Our results indicate the need for policy instruments that can encourage an equitable resource allocation within households.