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The Impact of School Lunches on Primary School Enrollment: Evidence from India's Midday Meal Scheme

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  • Rajshri Jayaraman
  • Dora Simroth

Abstract

At the end of 2001, the Indian Supreme Court issued a directive ordering states to institute school lunches – known locally as “midday meals” – in government primary schools. In this paper we provide a large-scale assessment of the enrollment effects of India's midday meal scheme, which offers warm lunches, free of cost, to 120 million primary school children across India, and is the largest school feeding program in the world. To isolate the causal effect of the policy, we make use of its staggered implementation across Indian states in government but not private schools. Using a panel dataset of more than 420,000 schools observed annually from 2002 to 2004, we find that midday meals result in substantial increases in primary school enrollment, driven by early primary school responses to the program. Our results are robust to a wide range of specification tests.

Suggested Citation

  • Rajshri Jayaraman & Dora Simroth, 2015. "The Impact of School Lunches on Primary School Enrollment: Evidence from India's Midday Meal Scheme," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 117(4), pages 1176-1203, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scandj:v:117:y:2015:i:4:p:1176-1203
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    Cited by:

    1. Nicolò Bird & Isabela Franciscon & Yannick Markhof & Pedro Arruda & Krista Alvarenga, 2021. "Social assistance programmes in South Asia: an evaluation of socio-economic impacts," One Pager 494, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    2. Afridi, Farzana & Barooah, Bidisha & Somanathan, Rohini, 2016. "The Mixture as Before? Student Responses to the Changing Content of School Meals in India," IZA Discussion Papers 9924, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Suman Chakrabarti & Samuel Scott & Harold Alderman & Purnima Menon & Daniel Gilligan, 2022. "Reply to: Intergenerational nutrition benefits of India’s national school feeding program: Reality or a bridge too far?," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-3, December.
    4. Farzana Afridi & Bidisha Barooah & Rohini Somanathan, 2016. "Student responses to the changing content of school meals in India," Working papers 264, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    5. Chakraborty, Tanika & Jayaraman, Rajshri, 2019. "School feeding and learning achievement: Evidence from India's midday meal program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 249-265.
    6. Kozhaya, Mireille & Martínez Flores, Fernanda, 2022. "School attendance and child labor: Evidence from Mexico’s Full-Time School program," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    7. Pinaki Das & Bibek Paria & Shama Firdaush, 2021. "Juxtaposing Consumption Poverty and Multidimensional Poverty: A Study in Indian Context," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(2), pages 469-501, January.
    8. Kozhaya, Mireille & Martínez Flores, Fernanda, 2020. "Child Education and Work: Evidence from Mexico's Full-Time School Program," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224567, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    9. Tiwari, Sandeep Kumar & Paltasingh, Kirtti Ranjan & Jena, Pabitra Kumar, 2020. "Caste-class association and school participation in Uttar Pradesh, India: Evidence from NSSO data," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    10. Fang, Guanfu & Zhu, Ying, 2022. "Long-term impacts of school nutrition: Evidence from China’s school meal reform," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    11. Kaur, Randeep, 2021. "Estimating the impact of school feeding programs: Evidence from mid day meal scheme of India," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. Kraig Delana & Sarang Deo & Kamalini Ramdas & Ganesh-Babu B. Subburaman & Thulasiraj Ravilla, 2023. "Multichannel Delivery in Healthcare: The Impact of Telemedicine Centers in Southern India," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(5), pages 2568-2586, May.
    13. Kozhaya, Mireille & Martinez Flores, Fernanda, 2020. "Schooling and child labor: Evidence from Mexico's full-time school program," Ruhr Economic Papers 851, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    14. Brahma, D. & Mukherjee, D., 2018. "India’S Mid-Day Meal Program And Schooling: An Evaluation Based On Machine Learning," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 18(1), pages 141-152.
    15. Drèze, Jean & Khera, Reetika, 2017. "Recent Social Security Initiatives in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 555-572.

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