Why caste plays a role in the status of children in India

Decades of caste discrimination have contributed to India having the highest rates of child stunting in all of Sub-Saharan Africa, a new study has revealed.

The two regions together are home to 44 percent of the world’s under-five population but an estimated 70 percent of the world’s children with disabilities – a major indicator of malnutrition.

But, although both have made great strides in recent years, India’s rate stands at 35.7%with an average of 49 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa at 33.6%.

A child is considered deficient when it falls short of the expected height for its age – a clear sign of a significant nutritional gap.

However, research by Ashwini Deshpande (Ashoka University) and Rajesh Ramachandran (Monash University, Malaysia) found that focusing only on the height gap – or why Indian children are shorter than children in Sub-Saharan Africa – overlooked an important factor: the important role of social identity, especially caste, in child malnutrition in India.

The first 1,000 days of a child’s life, often called the “golden age”, are important: at the age of two, 80% of the brain is developing, laying the foundation for lifelong skills. In these early years, access to health care, nutritious food, early learning, and a safe environment profoundly shape a child’s future.

India and Sub-Saharan Africa, both with rapidly growing middle classes, young populations and large labor forces, share a long-standing comparison. In 2021, the World Bank reported, “Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia [including India] they account for more than 85% of the world’s poor,” emphasizing the common challenges of poverty and development.

Using official data, the authors looked at the latest estimates of the staggering gap between India and a sample of 19 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Official data shows that more than 35% of India’s 137 million children under the age of five are disabled, and more than a third are also underweight. Globally, 22% of children under the age of five are disabled.

They then examined six socially disadvantaged groups in India. Among them are the adivasis (tribes living in remote areas) and the Dalits (known as untouchables), who alone make up a third of the population under the age of five.

Economists found that children from high-income, disadvantaged backgrounds in India stood at 27% – far lower than in Sub-Saharan Africa.

They also found that children from India’s upper class groups are 20% less likely to experience stunting compared to those from marginalized groups, who live in the lowest rungs of the class.

This conclusion remains significant even after accounting for factors such as birth order, sanitation practices, maternal height, number of siblings, education, anemia and household socioeconomic status.

This distinction is over seventy years of affirmative action, Caste system of India – fourfold hierarchy of Hindu religion – remains focused.

“This should not be surprising given that children from the best-off groups in India have access to more calories and experience better disease outcomes,” the authors said.

The reasons behind the high rates of stunting among children in India have sparked a complex debate over the years.

Some economists have argued that the difference is genetic – that Indian children are genetically at a lower height.

Some believe that improved nutrition over generations has closed height gaps that were thought to be genetic.

Some studies have found that girls fare worse than boys and others do the opposite, using different global levels.

To be sure, fitness has declined across social groups – separate study for 2022 found that improvements in health and nutrition interventions, household living conditions and maternal characteristics led to reduced stunting in four Indian states. (More than half of India’s children under the age of five were disabled, according to a 1992-93 family health association survey).

Children from disadvantaged groups such as adivasis are more likely to be malnourished.

In Africa, the level of poverty has decreased since 2010, although the absolute number has increased.

But what is clear is that children from poor families, with less educated mothers, or from marginalized groups, are at a greater risk of disability in India.

“The debate on the height gap between Indian and sub-Saharan African children has resulted in the neglect of the role of humanity in society, especially the level of race,” said the authors.

“This is an important factor in understanding the burden of child nutrition in India.”

The analysis uses data from demographic and health surveys. For India, it includes the latest data from 2019-21, and for Sub-Saharan Africa, it includes data from 19 countries with surveys from 2015 onwards. The dataset includes anthropometric – measurements related to body size and human body composition – results for 195,024 children under the age of five in India and 202,557 children under the age of five in Sub-Saharan Africa.