The Role of Inequality in Determining Nutrition: Explaining the Gujarat Paradox

Abstract

One of the industrialized states with concomitantly high rates of urbanization and economic development, Gujarat is one of the fastest growing states among the bigger Indian states. The incidence of poverty in Gujarat is lower than that in India in both rural and urban areas. The impact of the sustained economic growth on health and nutrition outcomes in Gujarat has been far from satisfactory. For an economically prosperous state, Gujarat continues to perform poorly in standard nutrition indicators. This chapter tries to understand this paradoxical relationship between economic development and child undernutrition indicators. It further explains the inequality in child undernutrition in Gujarat and identifies that socio-economic status of households explains more than half of the inequality that is prevalent in child undernutrition in Gujarat. The findings suggest that an improvement in wealth status of households is more beneficial for those children who are already relatively healthy.