Calorie deprivation and poverty nutrition trap in rural India

Abstract

This paper tests for the existence of a Poverty Nutrition Trap (PNT) in the case of the nutrient most likely to have productivity impacts, i.e., calories, for three categories of wages – sowing, harvesting, and other – and for male and female workers separately. We use household level national data for rural India for the period January to June 1994. We use robust sample selection procedures due to Tobit methods and due to Heckman to arrive at consistent estimates. It is discovered that the PNT exists for women workers engaged in harvesting and sowing in the case of the Heckman methodology. In the case of the Tobit analysis a PNT exists in the case of female harvest, male other, and female other categories of wages.