Examining the Role of Unequal Access to Technology in Child Nutritional Inequalities in India: A Change Decomposition Analyses

Anjali Sharma, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Technological innovations and adoptions are key pathways for achieving SDGs, including eliminating child malnutrition and related inequalities. However, the role of unequal access to technology in increasing inequalities in child nutritional outcomes has not been widely studied. This study has two-fold objectives: (1) Using earlier evidence put forth by Wagstaff (2002) and Deaton (2013), it theoretically discusses an ‘inverted U-shaped relationship’ between ‘technology accessibility’ and ‘child nutritional inequalities. (2) It estimates child nutritional inequalities and decomposes them to identify the role of technology in their current levels and changes over the period. Using data from five rounds of India’s Demographic Health Surveys, we measured wealth-based child nutritional inequalities using Wagstaff’s Corrected Concentration Index (CI). Further, CI and change in CI were decomposed to find relative contribution of technology. Findings reveal that inequality in child undernutrition has increased between 1992-93 and 2019-21, despite a significant decrease in their averages. Unequal access to digital and non-digital assets explains about 50% of inequality in child undernutrition and it is a major contributor to the increase in nutritional inequalities. This study advances that unequal access to technology widens the child undernutrition gap and advocates state-policy attempts to reduce disparities in technological access in India.

Keywords: Decomposition analysis, Children, Adolescents, and Youth, Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination, Health and Morbidity

See paper.