The link between infant mortality and child nutrition in India: is there any evidence of a gender bias?

In this paper, using the 1998-1999 National Family Health Survey data-set from India, we study whether there are gender differentials in infant mortality and child nutrition. Our analysis finds no evidence of gender differentials in survival probability. However, conditional upon surviving the first year, girls are found to have poorer height-for-age outcomes. There are also significant regional differences in both survival probabilities and nutritional outcomes. We show that the height-for-age z-score is significantly lower for higher birth-order children (later-born children), and the effect is monotonically increasing. Finally, parental education and household wealth have statistically significant effects on both survival outcomes and child nutrition.