Is there any interaction effect of mothers’ education and their bargaining power on children’s nutritional status? Evidence from rural Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between mothers’ education and children’s nutritional status in rural Bangladesh with a specific focus on the interaction effect of mothers’ education and their intra-household bargaining power. By applying the linear multiple regression analysis to a sample of Bangladeshi rural children aged up to 24 months, this paper finds that mothers’ education exhibits a direct but weakly significant influence on the children’s overall nutritional status after controlling for child, parents, household, and community characteristics. Furthermore the paper finds that the interaction between mothers’ education and her intra-household bargaining power in relation to food purchase is positively and significantly associated with children’s weight. Notably the interaction effect attenuates the significance of the association between mothers’ education and children’s overall nutritional status. This implies that children of households where mothers’ voice is heard in food acquire decisions perform better in respect of overall nutritional status compared with the children of households that lack in the balance of power between spouses. This paper, therefore, concludes that policies towards promoting girls’ education may have the potential of improving children’s nutritional status in developing countries like Bangladesh.