CHILD GROWTH IN INDIA VS. AFRICA

Source: Flickr (IFPRI South Asia)

IFPRI will continue with its AMD (Applied Microeconomics and Development) Seminar Series on Thursday, October 17 at 12:00pm EST. Rohini Pande of the Harvard Kennedy School will present on the differences in height-for-age among children in India and children in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Pande will discuss results from the paper Why Are Indian Children Shorter than African Children? This paper examines data collected from demographic and health surveys in India and Sub-Saharan Africa and finds that while India is richer than the average African country and fares better in terms of infant mortality, height-for-age among children in India is in fact lower than among children in Africa. The paper posits that this result could be explained by cultural norms such as parental preferences regarding higher birth order, particularly for elder sons.

The AMD Seminar Series is designed to provide a forum for researchers to present high-quality applied microeconomics and development work. Seminars are held on the first Thursday of each month at the IFPRI home office in Washington DC. (It should be noted that the October 17 seminar deviates from this schedule.)

To RSVP for this or future seminars, please contact Alexandria Cannon (a.cannon@cgiar.org).