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Empowerment and nutrition in Niger: insights from the Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition grid

Author

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  • Erin Lentz

    (University of Texas at Austin)

  • Elizabeth Bageant

    (Cornell University)

  • Sudha Narayanan

    (International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI))

Abstract

Niger, one of the most impoverished countries in the world, has fared consistently poorly on a range of human development indicators, including women’s nutritional status. A combination of nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive interventions that also address women’s empowerment is essential to address nutritional goals, particularly in resource-constrained settings. Yet, there is not much clarity on what sectors policy makers should target. To identify the aspects of women’s empowerment that are associated with nutritional outcomes in Niger, we present a novel application of a regression decomposition technique, the Shapley-Owen decomposition. After categorizing the drivers of undernutrition into a series of domains (food, health, fertility and institutions) and dimensions (knowledge, resources, and agency), we predict women’s body mass index and anemia status based on these domain-dimensions and other controls using Demographic and Health Survey data. We find that access to health resources and fertility resources play a substantial role in women’s nutritional outcomes in Niger. By identifying the relative contribution of each domain-dimension, our approach offers a unique insight into what sectors are most closely related to the nutritional status of Nigerien women and can aid in identifying interventions that both empower women and improve nutritional wellbeing.

Suggested Citation

  • Erin Lentz & Elizabeth Bageant & Sudha Narayanan, 2021. "Empowerment and nutrition in Niger: insights from the Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition grid," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(5), pages 1227-1244, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ssefpa:v:13:y:2021:i:5:d:10.1007_s12571-021-01155-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s12571-021-01155-x
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    Cited by:

    1. Mosses Lufuke & Yunli Bai & Shenggen Fan & Xu Tian, 2022. "Women’s Empowerment, Food Security, and Nutrition Transition in Africa," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-11, December.
    2. Clapp, Jennifer & Moseley, William G. & Burlingame, Barbara & Termine, Paola, 2022. "Viewpoint: The case for a six-dimensional food security framework," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    3. Serge Savary & Stephen Waddington & Sonia Akter & Conny J. M. Almekinders & Jody Harris & Lise Korsten & Reimund P. Rötter & Goedele den Broeck, 2022. "Revisiting food security in 2021: an overview of the past year," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 14(1), pages 1-7, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    West Africa; Nutrition; Gender; Empowerment; Regression decomposition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

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