Child Malnutrition and Mortality: Income and Non-Income Factors

In this article, we discuss the interaction and relevance of the most relevant key economic and social factors causing child malnutrition and mortality in the developing world. In the first two sections we discuss the relevance of the main income and nonincome factors affecting child malnutrition and mortality, identify the main clusters of food insecure people in the world, and analyze the most relevant features of their livelihood profiles. In the remainder of the paper, we explore and estimate the causal linkages relating such factors to child malnutrition and mortality by means of a crosscountry econometric analysis based mainly on a comprehensive and consistent World Bank database. Our main findings are as follows. First, with respect to income factors, each country’s per capita income is paramount, but income distribution is also important. Second, access to basic services is key to abate child malnutrition and mortality. Third, the role of gender-related factors also play a relevant role.