Table 4.
Years of schooling and child undernutrition
| Model 1 |
Model 2 |
Model 3 |
|||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stunting | Underweight | Wasting | Stunting | Underweight | Wasting | Stunting | Underweight | Wasting | |
| Maternal years of schooling | –1.50 | –0.90 | –0.20 | –0.92 | –0.58 | –0.14 | –0.56 | –0.42 | –0.13 |
| (–1.53, –1.46) | (–0.93, –0.87) | (–0.22, –0.18) | (–0.95, –0.88) | (–0.61, –0.55) | (–0.16, –0.11) | (–0.60, –0.52) | (–0.45, –0.38) | (–0.15, –0.10) | |
| Paternal years of schooling | –0.72 | –0.60 | –0.19 | –0.40 | –0.40 | –0.14 | –0.36 | –0.31 | –0.09 |
| (–0.75, –0.69) | (–0.63, –0.58) | (–0.20, –0.17) | (–0.43, –0.37) | (–0.43, –0.38) | (–0.16, –0.12) | (–0.39, –0.33) | (–0.34, –0.29) | (–0.11, –0.07) | |
| n | 948 642 | 977 862 | 938 208 | 948 642 | 977 862 | 938 208 | 948 642 | 977 862 | 938 208 |
| Paternal minus maternal school years | –0.03 | –0.13 | –0.07 | 0.01 | –0.09 | –0.05 | –0.07 | –0.08 | –0.02 |
| (–0.06, –0.00) | (–0.16, –0.11) | (–0.08, –0.05) | (–0.01, 0.04) | (–0.12, –0.07) | (–0.07, –0.04) | (–0.10, –0.04) | (–0.11, –0.06) | (–0.04, –0.00) | |
| n | 948 642 | 977 862 | 938 208 | 948 642 | 977 862 | 938 208 | 948 642 | 977 862 | 938 208 |
| Paternal divided by maternal school years | –0.25 | –0.10 | –0.01 | 0.04 | 0.03 | 0.01 | –0.27 | –0.12 | –0.02 |
| (–0.39, –0.12) | (–0.21, –0.00) | (–0.07, 0.06) | (–0.09, 0.17) | (–0.07, 0.13) | (–0.05, 0.08) | (–0.43, –0.12) | (–0.24, –0.00) | (–0.10, 0.06) | |
| n | 541 451 | 553 108 | 534 938 | 541 451 | 553 108 | 534 938 | 541 451 | 553 108 | 534 938 |
| Different number of school years | –3.05 | –4.18 | –1.77 | –1.73 | –3.31 | –1.53 | –1.26 | –1.63 | –0.69 |
| (–3.29, –2.80) | (–4.39, –3.97) | (–1.92, –1.61) | (–1.97, –1.49) | (–3.52, –3.10) | (–1.69, –1.38) | (–1.53, –1.00) | (–1.86, –1.41) | (–0.86, –0.52) | |
| Mother completed more years of schooling than the father | –2.63 | –1.04 | –0.16 | –1.85 | –0.67 | –0.12 | –0.29 | –0.14 | –0.17 |
| (–2.90, –2.36) | (–1.25, –0.83) | (–0.31, –0.01) | (–2.11, –1.58) | (–0.88, –0.47) | (–0.27, 0.03) | (–0.58, 0.00) | (–0.37, 0.10) | (–0.33, 0.00) | |
| n | 948 642 | 977 862 | 938 208 | 948 642 | 977 862 | 938 208 | 948 642 | 977 862 | 938 208 |
The table presents unweighted marginal effects in percentage points on different forms of child undernutrition with 95% confidence intervals in parentheses below. Model 1 is only adjusted for child age, sex and country-level fixed effects. Model 2 further controls for child birth order, whether the child was born in a multiple birth, maternal age and partnership status, urban location of household as well as its wealth quintile as measured by household asset ownership. Model 3 is additionally adjusted for local area characteristics (PSU-level fixed effects). All standard errors were clustered on the PSU level. For each model type, different specifications were estimated, using either maternal and paternal years of schooling or the following composite indicators as exposure: ‘Paternal minus maternal school years’, ‘paternal divided by maternal school years’ or the two binary indicators ‘different number of school years’ and ‘mother completed more years of schooling than the father’. With the execption of the main effects models (i.e. maternal and paternal years of schooling), all specifications control for the number of school years achieved by the least-educated parent.