Nutrition, Religion, and Widowhood in Nigeria

Annamaria Milazzo,Dominique Van De Walle

doi:10.1086/704159

Abstract

It is known that Muslim women in Nigeria have significantly worse nutritional status than their Christian counterparts. The paper first shows that this difference is explained by covariates including geographic location, ethnicity, household wealth, and women?s education. However, on accounting for observable characteristics, Muslim widows enjoy a higher nutritional status than Christian widows, particularly in rural areas. The patterns are robust to including village fixed effects and are confirmed for mixed religion ethnic groups. The data are consistent with more favorable processes following widowhood among Muslims, namely inheritance practices and remarriage options. Data on inheritance and violence patterns by religion confirm that Muslim widows are significantly less likely to be dispossessed of their late husband's property or to be mistreated upon widowhood by in-laws. Muslim women are more likely to be chronically undernourished but less nutritionally vulnerable to this marital shock.

Highlights

Unmarried individuals have been found to have higher mortality and morbidity than married ones. Anderson and Ray (2018) argue that widowhood accounts for some 35% of excess adult female mortality in Africa
The mistreatment of widows is a grave and recognized concern as evidenced by the many Nigerianbased NGOs focusing on the rights of widows and by special modules in the most recent Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) concerning violence and dispossession following a husband’s passing
Christian women as a group have a significantly higher Body Mass Index (BMI)—a standard measure of nutritional status given by weight divided by the square of height—than Muslim women, with the differential rising with age

Summary

Introduction

Unmarried individuals have been found to have higher mortality and morbidity than married ones. Anderson and Ray (2018) argue that widowhood accounts for some 35% of excess adult female mortality in Africa. Christian women as a group have a significantly higher Body Mass Index (BMI)—a standard measure of nutritional status given by weight (in kg) divided by the square of height (in meters)—than Muslim women, with the differential rising with age. The paper aims to better understand the sources of the observed differences in BMI between Christian and Muslim women in Nigeria with a specific focus on widows. It demonstrates that the Muslim BMI disadvantage is almost entirely explained by differences in location, living standards, education and ethnicity. The paper finds suggestive evidence of overall improvements in nutritional status between 2008 and 2013 with a falling differential across the groups In both urban and rural areas, Muslim women experienced significantly higher gains in BMI.

Women and legal systems in Nigeria

Data and descriptive statistics

Explaining the religion differential in nutritional status

Further tests

Findings

Conclusions