Child nutritional status and child growth in Kenya: Socioeconomic determinants

Reduced-form demand relations for weight, height and weight gain since birth are estimated using data on 7,907 children in Kenya. Maternal education is a significant determinant of all indicators, with secondary schooling having larger although not significantly different effects than primary schooling. Per capita household expenditure has highly significant but numerically small effects. Birth weight has a strong negative effect on subsequent weight gain. The effect becomes even more negative (indicating almost complete catch-up by age one) when birth weight is treated as an endogenous variable. These results indicate that small deficits in birth weight are not permanent.