the provincial nutrition status notes examine several standard child feeding indicators, and find, based on bivariate tests, that they generally do not differ between girls and boys in any of the provinces.

The aggregate gender gap may also conceal the differential treatment of boys and girls that can occur when households face extreme circumstances. Duflo (2012) cites evidence from India that suggests that the adverse treatment of girls is exacerbated when the household experiences negative shocks such as a drought, bad harvest, or flood. Consistent with this hypothesis, Laghari et al. (2015) examine a sample of poor children in Sanghar district, Sindh in the months after a severe flood, and find in bivariate tests that, while mild and moderate undernutrition levels do not differ between boys and girls, the level of severe undernutrition is higher for girls.

With respect to the effects of fertility-related behaviors, nutrition status is negatively associated with succeeding birth intervals shorter than two years (Ibrahim 1999), shorter preceding birth intervals (Headey, Hoddinott, and Park 2016; Mahmood 2001), more children in the household (Headey, Hoddinott, and Park 2016), and more siblings (Mahmood 2001). As an exception, Arif et al. (2014) do not find that the number of siblings is associated with HAZ, WAZ, or WHZ. Fikree, Rahbar, and Berendes (2000) find that first-born status is negatively associated with stunting status, but do not find the same for wasting status.

_Mother-level factors_ : Most studies examine the effect of mother’s education attainment on child nutrition status, and tend to find that it is positive.<sup>39, 40</sup> Panel B in Figure 5, which plots child undernutrition rates by mother’s education attainment level based on 2012–13 DHS statistics, shows the bivariate relationship. Children of uneducated mothers have a stunting rate of 55%, whereas children of mothers with at least higher secondary education have a stunting rate of 21%, or less than half.

Some studies find that the effect of mother’s education attainment on child nutrition status is nonlinear, specifically, the size of the effect increases with the education level (Di Cesare et al. 2015; Arif et al. 2014; Baig-Ansari et al. 2006; Fikree, Rahbar, and Berendes 2000). This pattern is consistent with general evidence from other developing countries (Alderman and Headey 2017). The provincial nutrition status notes also indicate that the pattern of effects on stunting status by mother’s education attainment levels differs markedly across provinces. At one extreme, in Balochistan, the effect of mother’s secondary education or higher does not differ from the effects of all lower levels of education. At the other extreme, in Punjab, the effect of mother’s secondary education or higher differs from the effects of all lower levels. In KPK and Sindh, the pattern of effects falls in between.

Few studies report effects on child nutrition status from other mother-level factors. Ibrahim (1999) finds mother’s current age to be positively associated with WAZ and HAZ. Based on bivariate

> 39 See Headey, Hoddinott, and Park (2016); Di Cesare et al. (2015); Baig-Ansari et al. (2006); Haddad et al. (2003); Mahmood (2001); Fikree, Rahbar, and Berendes (2000); Ibrahim (1999); Alderman and Garcia (1994); Hazarika (2000).

> 40 A few studies additionally examine the effect of father’s education attainment on child nutrition status. Headey, Hoddinott, and Park (2016); Haddad et al. (2003); and Mahmood (2001) find that father’s education attainment is positively associated with child nutrition status, whereas Alderman and Garcia (1994) find the effect to be insignificant.

20