International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Kampala, Uganda.
International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Cali, Colombia.
PLoS One. 2024 Aug 6;19(8):e0305204. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0305204. eCollection 2024.
Women's empowerment has been promoted by researchers and development practitioners as one of the most promising strategies to address widespread hunger and malnutrition. However, the relationship between women's empowerment and dietary diversity and child nutrition has rarely been studied among vulnerable populations or individuals at greater risk of poor physical and social health status. Moreover, the effects of different domains of women's empowerment on nutritional outcomes, including dietary diversity and child anthropometry, have rarely been examined, especially with panel data. Using two rounds of panel data from 1900 households and fixed effects regression models, we analyze the effect of women's empowerment on household dietary diversity score (HDDS) and child anthropometry among the particularly vulnerable tribal groups in Odisha, India. We also estimate the effects of various decision-making domains of women's empowerment on HDDS and child anthropometry to understand which empowerment domains matter for nutrition. Results show that women's empowerment is positively associated with HDDS (coef. 0.41 food groups; p < 0.1) and reduces the prevalence of underweight (coef. 39%; p < 0.05) and wasting (coef. 56%; p < 0.1) in children but has no effect on the prevalence of child stunting. Women's empowerment in agricultural input use; output sales; income; food purchases; and credit, group membership, and employment contribute to improved dietary diversity and child nutrition. We conclude that women's empowerment contributes to improved dietary diversity and child nutrition and is a promising strategy to improve farm household diets and child nutrition among vulnerable populations. Strengthening women's empowerment through the promotion of women's access to land and other agricultural inputs, market participation, access to information, capital, and credit is important.
妇女赋权一直被研究人员和发展实践者视为解决广泛饥饿和营养不良问题最有前途的策略之一。然而，在脆弱人群或身体和社会健康状况较差风险更高的个体中，妇女赋权与饮食多样性和儿童营养之间的关系很少得到研究。此外，妇女赋权的不同领域对营养结果的影响，包括饮食多样性和儿童人体测量，很少被研究，特别是在面板数据中。本文利用来自印度奥里萨邦 1900 户家庭的两轮面板数据和固定效应回归模型，分析了妇女赋权对家庭饮食多样性得分（HDDS）和儿童人体测量的影响。我们还估计了妇女赋权的各种决策领域对 HDDS 和儿童人体测量的影响，以了解哪些赋权领域对营养重要。结果表明，妇女赋权与 HDDS 呈正相关（食品组 0.41；p<0.1），降低了儿童消瘦（系数 39%；p<0.05）和消瘦（系数 56%；p<0.1）的发生率，但对儿童发育迟缓的发生率没有影响。妇女赋权在农业投入使用、产出销售、收入、食品购买以及信贷、团体成员和就业方面有助于改善饮食多样性和儿童营养。我们的结论是，妇女赋权有助于改善饮食多样性和儿童营养，是改善脆弱人群家庭饮食和儿童营养的有前途的策略。通过促进妇女获得土地和其他农业投入、市场参与、获取信息、资本和信贷，加强妇女赋权非常重要。
