Women's position in the family and child nutritional status. Asia-Africa comparisons.

Dionisia Maffioli, Università degli Studi di Bari
Piero Sacco, Università di Bari
Giuseppe Gabrielli, Università di Bari

The household wealth being equal, the nutritional status of children can be considered as a marker of long-term resource allocation decisions made by families. The position of the children and their mother in the family (relationship with the householder) and the level mothers’ autonomy of action influences the proportion of family resources destined to children. The relationship among anthropometric indicators of nutritional status and variables on households and the decisional power of women are analysed in several African and Asian countries, using DHS data. Logistic regression models were constructed using the prevalence of stunted children as class variable. Women’s autonomy status and, separately, family structure indicators are the explanatory variables, along with socio-demographic aspects. Provisional results show that the effects of the household structure and the mother’s decisional capacity are significant and independent from other socio-economic and demographic factors.