Child malnutrition in its various forms remains widespread in Ethiopia, and children
often consume poor diets characterized by low diversity. Efforts seeking to improve
child nutrition have placed a strong emphasis on women’s role. Women’s nutrition
knowledge and empowerment are vital impact pathways for nutrition-sensitive
programs and interventions. This paper examines the effects of women’s nutrition
knowledge and empowerment on child nutrition outcomes using survey data from
rural Ethiopia. Using an instrumental variable (IV) approach to address potential
endogeneity concerns, women’s nutrition knowledge and empowerment are found
to have strong and significant effects on reducing child stunting. The interaction
between nutrition knowledge and women’s empowerment appears to have additional
power in explaining child stunting. A disaggregated analysis of empowerment reveals
that empowering women in agricultural household decisions and increasing their
access to and control of economic resources are more promising for improving child
nutrition. Overall, the findings suggest efforts targeting to improve child nutrition
in rural Ethiopia need to ensure that they are complemented by efforts to improve
women’s nutrition knowledge and empowerment.
