Effect of mother's workload on child nutrition: Evidence from rural Bangladesh

Existing literature on child nutrition in the context of Bangladesh primarily focuses on identifying socioeconomic determinants; while ignoring the fact that mothers' workload may compromise their ability to provide care and consequently affect child nutrition. In view of this, by using a comprehensive care index and mothers' time use data from a countrywide household survey, this research explores how mothers' time in various activities influences the effect of ‘care’ on rural Bangladeshi children's nutritional status. Based on multiple regression analysis, this study finds that although ‘care’ is a highly significant determinant of child nutrition; its effect varies considerably with mothers' working hour in different activities. In particular, the significance of care attenuates completely when mothers' workload in unpaid household work is accounted for. Thus, this research suggests that a given level of childcare exerts varying effects on child nutrition as mothers' work time varies in different activities. This finding has important policy relevance because rural women's unpaid workload has been intensified by agricultural and rural development initiatives over the past years in Bangladesh. Finally, this study concludes that unless mothers can be freed from excessive workloads, policy interventions intended at improving child nutrition may not become as successful as one would expect.