Page 129 - IJPS-10-2

International Journal of
Population Studies Child malnutrition in rural India

study region. Two crops, namely, aman and aus had been socioeconomic characteristics. In the analysis, model 1
cultivated on more than 50% of agricultural land. In this shows the relationship of crop diversification with child
case, the compound percentage of two crops (aman paddy malnutrition, while model 2 shows the relationship of crop
and aus paddy) is very high. diversification with child malnutrition after controlling
other independent variables.
3.4. Determinants of child malnutrition
It is evident from the analysis that children belonging
Table 6 lists the determinants of the nutritional status of to households practicing low crop diversification were less
children, including transformed Herfindahl index and likely to be underweight (model 2) compared to very low

Table 6. Multivariate logistic regression of crop diversification and background characteristics influencing child
malnutrition, 2017
Transformed Herfindahl index Underweight (<−2 SD) Stunting (<−2 SD) Wasting (<−2 SD)
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6
Exp (B) Exp (B) Exp (B) Exp (B) Exp (B) Exp (B)
Very low ®
Low 0.787 0.411* 0.936 0.605 0.663* 0.539
Moderate 1.288 1.500 1.368 2.148 2.105 1.278
Age of the children
<2 years ®
2–3 years 1.172 0.704 0.844
4–5 years 1.114 0.887 1.458
Gender of the children
Male ®
Female 1.002 1.305 1.411
Birth order
First ®
Second 0.073** 0.070** 0.330
Age of mother
<25 years ®
>25 years 11.058** 12.909** 1.631
Education of mother
Lower than secondary education ®
Secondary education and above 0.666 1.245 0.200*
Caste of the household
General ®
Scheduled caste 0.367* 0.390* 0.811
Scheduled tribe 0.830 0.574 0.779
OBC 1.019 1.896 1.214
Type of house
Kaccha ®
Semi-pucca 2.696* 1.904 4.811**
Farm size of household (in hectare)
<1 ha ®
More than one hectare 0.576 0.378* 0.607
Note: ®Reference category; **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05
Abbreviations: OBC: Other backward class; <−2 SD: Below minus two standard deviations.

Volume 10 Issue 2 (2024) 123 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.0324