Choudhury, S., Shankar, B. orcid.org/0000-0001-8102-321X, Aleksandrowicz, L. et al. (2 more authors) (2021) Caste-based inequality in fruit and vegetables consumption in India. Food and Nutrition Bulletin, 42 (3). pp. 451-459. ISSN 0379-5721
Abstract
Objective:
Fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption is of central importance to many diet-related health outcomes. In India, caste is a major basis of socioeconomic inequality. Recent analysis shows that more disadvantaged “lower” castes consume less F&V than the rest. This article explores whether this consumption gap arises due to differential distribution of drivers of consumption such as income and education across castes, or whether behavioral differences or discrimination may be at play.
Design:
The Oaxaca-Blinder regression decomposition is applied to explain the gap in F&V consumption between “upper” castes and “lower” castes, using data from the 68th (2011-2012) round of the National Sample Survey Organization household survey.
Results:
Differences in the distribution of F&V drivers account for all of the 50 grams/person/day consumption gap between upper and lower castes. In particular, much of the gap is explained by income differential across castes.
Conclusions:
In the long run, India’s positive discrimination policies in education and employment that seek to equalize income across castes are also likely to help close the F&V consumption gap, leading to health benefits. In the medium run, interventions acting to boost lower caste income, such as cash transfers targeting lower castes, may be effective.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | India; fruit and vegetable consumption; nutrition; caste-based inequality; regression decomposition |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 19 Jul 2021 10:28 |
Last Modified: | 09 Mar 2022 11:01 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/03795721211026807 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:176303 |