Assessing association of household diet diversity with mother’s time use on productive and reproductive activities: a case for gender sensitive social safety nets

Autor: Surabhi Chaturvedi, Sumathi Swaminathan, Sanchit Makkar, Anjaly Teresa John, Tinku Thomas
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Public Health Nutrition, Vol 27 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 13689800
1368-9800
1475-2727
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980023002963
Popis: Abstract Objective: In South Asia, while women make substantial economic contributions through their participation in agricultural sector, these contributions are undercounted as most of their work is underpaid or unpaid. This paper examines how mothers allocate their time to productive and reproductive activities and its association with a household’s ability to achieve high household diet diversity score. Design: The analysis uses data on household consumption and expenditure including food during the kharif (June to October) season (seeds are sown) and a modular time-use survey. Setting: Two districts of rural Bihar, India. Participants: Mothers with children less than 5 years of age and supported by the head of the household from 2026 households. Results: The estimates indicate that the high household diet diversity (High HDDS ≥ 10) is associated with greater time spent in reproductive activities by all women (OR = 1·12, 95 % CI: 1·06, 1·18). However, with increasing time spent in productive activities by the women the odds of achieving ‘High HDDS’ reduced (OR = 0·83, 95 % CI: 0·77, 0·89) in adjusted logistic regression analysis. Conclusion: The findings highlight propensity to achieve ‘High HDDS’ in Bihar increased with mothers allocating time towards reproductive activities, while it had an opposing effect with mothers allocating time on productive activities. Our study highlights that the policies that encourage women’s participation in agriculture or livestock should acknowledge the unpaid nature of some of the productive activities and design programs to improve economic agency of women to actuate the true potential of agriculture-nutrition pathways.
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