Socioeconomic Factors Affecting Malnutrition among Children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan
Abstract
This study aimed to examine the effect of malnutrition among children in Pakistan. This study uses the data from the most recent Pakistan Social and Living Measurement (PSLM) Survey for the year 2018-19. Logit Model was used to see the effects of socio-economic and demographic determinants on malnutrition status of households. Sample size calculator was used to calculate the sample size for the study. Total samples of 4470 households were randomly selected from the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Total sample was divided into Urban and Rural regions. This study included about 1449 households from Urban and 3021 households from Rural regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Covariates such as gender, region, age, marital status, employment, qualification of head of the household, income, family size and house ownership were considered to examine their effect on malnutrition. Malnutrition was measured as a perceived dummy variable having value of one if a household reported malnutrition and having zero value otherwise. The mean value of malnutrition is 0.46 which means that 46% of households faced malnutrition in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. About 86.3% households had their households head male and only 13.7% had their female household heads. It was found that the households headed by male individuals have greater chances of malnutrition compared to households headed by female. Further, age of the household’s head, was found to be positively related to malnutrition implying households headed by aged individuals are more prone to have malnutrition problem. The effect of marital status on malnutrition status is inversely but insignificantly related to malnutritional status of household as the coefficient value was negative and statistically insignificant. The study suggests that malnutrition problem should be controlled through increasing education level of parents, by providing appropriate food type and by controlling family size.
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