Regional Inequalities in Child Malnutrition in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen

There is substantial evidence that on average, urban children have better healthoutcomes than rural children. This paper investigates the underlying factors thataccount for the regional disparities in child malnutrition in three Arab countries,namely; Egypt, Jordon, and Yemen. We use data on a nationally representative samplefrom the most recent waves of the Demographic and Health Survey. A BlinderOaxacadecomposition analysis is conducted to decompose the rural-urban differencesin child nutrition outcomes into two components; one that is explained by regionaldifferences in the level of the determinants (covariate effects), and another componentthat is explained by differences in the effect of the determinants on the childnutritional status (coefficient effects). Results show that the under-five stunting ratesare 20% in Egypt, 46.5 % in Yemen, and 7.7% in Jordan. The rural- urban gap in childmalnutrition was minor in the case of Egypt (2.3%) and Jordan (1.5%), while theregional gap was significant in the case of Yemen (17.7%). Results of the BlinderOaxacadecomposition show that the covariate effect is dominant in the case ofYemen while the coefficients effect dominates in the case of Jordan. Incomeinequality between urban and rural households explains most of the malnutrition gap.Results were robust to the different decomposition weighting schemes. By identifyingthe underlying factors behind the rural- urban health disparities, the findings of thispaper help in designing effective intervention measures aimed at reducing regionalinequalities and improving population health outcomes.