Caste Differences in Child Growth : Disentangling Endowment and Investment Effects

Using the fourth round of the Indian National Family Health Survey (NFHS4), and subsequently replicating our results using the fifth round (NFHS-5), we document differential child physical growth patterns across caste groups in India, demonstrating that lower caste children are born shorter and grow less quickly than children from higher-caste households. Unlike previous research, our research reveals that the influence of these variables changes as children develop, and suggest that caste-gaps are the result of multiple channels of causal effects impacting the child growth process at different stages of development. Using age-disaggregated decomposition methods, we demonstrate that health endowment related variables largely explain birth length gaps, and that investment related variables become increasingly influential as children age. Children from low caste households thus face two margins generating height gaps as they age: a persistent endowment effect present from birth, and a post birth investment effect that exacerbates the initial deficit