Rainfall, mothers' time use, and child nutrition: evidence from rural Uganda.

Abstract

Care provision is a key component of women's time use with implications for the health and wellbeing of children. Shifting labor demands resulting from weather shocks may imply that women in developing countries have less time for care provision, potentially affecting their children's nutrition. Nonetheless, a broad literature focusing on the indirect impacts of climate change on child nutrition has yet to explore the mechanisms whereby this occurs, and whether mothers' time use is one of these mechanisms. Using the Uganda National Panel Survey, a unique data set that gathers data on farming activities, time use, and anthropometric measures, I analyze how rainfall variability affects mother's time use and whether time use is a mechanism whereby rainfall variability affects child nutrition in the short run (measured as weight-for-age and weight-for-height Z-scores). My results show that increased rainfall variability in the last month decreases mothers' time share in other household-related activities (e.g., fetching water), while it increases the probability of child wasting. Moreover, using mediation analysis, I find that none of the mothers' time-use variables appears to be a mediating factor between rainfall variability and child nutrition. These results suggest that mothers adjust their time use due to rainfall variability without jeopardizing their children's nutritional levels.