Mothers’ Control of Household Financial Resources and Child Malnutrition: Evidence from Ghana

Abstract

Over the years, there has been an improvement in child nutritional status around the world. Though this improvement in child nutritional status has also been evident in Ghana, it has been slow and unevenly distributed across the country. Ghana‘s child nutritional indicators are still below the average conditions that prevail globally. Wasting in Ghana is still higher than the average rate around the world, and a relatively higher percentage of children below age five in Ghana suffer from stunting, and underweight than their counterparts in other parts of the world. On average, a child in Ghana is more at risk of getting stunted, wasted or underweight than the average child worldwide. Considering the immense significance of children to the survival of our society, the development of a strong labour force and future economic development, policies must be developed to remedy this situation. Nutrition is multidimensional in nature, ranging from biological, social, and psychological dimensions. Thus, a number of factors have been investigated to determine the effect of these nutritional dimensions on child malnutrition, where maternal control of household financial resources is a major factor that has often been mentioned. However, the influence of maternal intra-household bargaining power on child nutritional status in Ghana is largely unknown. This study investigates the effect of maternal control of household financial resources on child nutritional indicators using logistic regression. The findings reveals that maternal participation in the control of household financial resources significantly reduces the occurrence of child stunting, and underweight, but failed to be significant for wasting among children below five years in Ghana. These findings can be reconciled by the fact that in Ghana, mothers are majorly caregivers in the household beginning from when a child is born till he or she grows. This phenomenon positively influences their household bargaining power as it affects child’s nutritional status.