Heterogeneous Effects of Maternal Labor Market Participation on the Nutritional Status of Children: Empirical Evidence from Rural India

Abstract

We use a dataset of rural Indian households to investigate the effects of maternal participation in labor markets on child nutrition (the standardized height-for-age). Our study differs methodologically from previous research in this realm in that we are using an instrumental variable quantile regression framework in order to estimate the causal effects of maternal work at various locations of the height-for-age distribution in rural India. The quantile estimates provide evidence of large heterogeneity in the effect of a mother's work on child nutrition. In particular, the results suggest that it is children in the lower tail of the distribution who experience more sizable 'nutritional premiums' due to maternal labor market participation; the effects are small and insignificant for children in the rest of the distribution.