Impact of food price volatility on child health and education attainment: A case study of urban households of Pakistan

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to find the impact of food price volatility on child health and education attainment in urban areas of Pakistan. This research also compares the two variables among the two time periods: the period of low volatile food prices (2014‒2015) and the period of high volatile food prices (2013‒2014). The rate of child immunization and the rate of child school attendance are used as proxies for child health and child education, respectively.

Design/methodology/approach

This study employs propensity score matching (PSM) technique introduced by Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983), to overcome the selection bias problem in the observational studies.

Findings

The closing part of the paper concludes that both the rate of child immunization and the rate of child school attendance are significantly poorer for the households of Pakistan in the control period (of high food price volatility) as compared to the treated period (of low food price volatility). After controlling the problem of selection bias through PSM technique, it is found that there is a further increase in the rate of child immunization and the rate of child school attendance. It proves that the data were biased before applying the matching technique.

Originality/value

This study lengthens the literature by identifying the impact of food price volatility on child health and education of urban households of Pakistan, using high frequency data of PSLM/HIES, with the help of semi-parametric technique of matching. This type of micro-level research has not been conducted (nationally or internationally) so far; therefore, it would possibly open a sphere for policy makers to implement the suitable policies.

Peer review

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-04-2019-0275.

Citation

Zehra, N. (2020), "Impact of food price volatility on child health and education attainment: A case study of urban households of Pakistan", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 47 No. 2, pp. 223-243. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-04-2019-0275