Factors Associated with Inequality in Undernutrition among Egyptian Children | ||
| The Egyptian Statistical Journal | ||
| Article 8, Volume 68, Issue 1, June 2024, Pages 125-137 PDF (543.32 K) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/esju.2024.268917.1027 | ||
| Author | ||
| Mohamed Ali Hussein Aboakrab* | ||
| Statistics Department, Faculty of Politics and Economics, Beni-Suef University, Egypt | ||
| Abstract | ||
| Adequate nutrition plays a vital role in children's health and development. Malnutrition reduces productivity and increases morbidity and mortality. The current study uses the concentration index to determine socioeconomic inequality in malnutrition among children. It decomposes this inequality by identifying the factors contributing to childhood malnutrition inequality. Data were extracted from the 2014 EDHS. The concentration curve shows that children from low-economic households are more stunted and underweight than children from high-economic backgrounds. The results of this study show that one in five Egyptian children was stunted, and about 6 per cent were underweight. In general, the most prominent finding to emerge from this paper is that women's education and economic status contributed to the highest inequality in childhood stunting and underweight, respectively. Moreover, the results indicate that birth order number and blood relation between parents were important determinants explaining considerable shares of the inequalities in childhood stunting. In contrast, birth order number and mother's education were the main contributors to the inequality of childhood underweight. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Decomposing; Inequality; Stunting; Underweight; Socioeconomic; Egypt | ||
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