Improving child nutrition and empowering women are two important and closely connected development goals. Fostering female employment is often seen as an avenue to serve both these goals, especially if it helps to empower the mothers of undernourished children. However, maternal employment can influence child nutrition through different mechanisms, and the net effect may not necessarily be positive. We develop a theoretical model to show that maternal employment can affect child nutrition through changes in income, intrahousehold bargaining power, and time available for childcare. The links are analyzed empirically using panel data from farm households in rural Tanzania. We find that the links between maternal employment and child height-for-age Z-scores (HAZ) are non-linear. Off-farm employment is negatively associated with child HAZ at low levels of labor supply. The association turns positive at higher levels of labor supply and negative again at very high levels. The associations between maternal on-farm work and child nutrition are weaker and not statistically significant. These findings can help to better design development interventions that foster synergies and avoid potential tradeoffs between female empowerment and child nutrition goals.

中文翻译：

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坦桑尼亚农村孕产妇就业与儿童营养之间的联系

改善儿童营养和赋予妇女权力是两个重要且密切相关的发展目标。促进女性就业通常被视为实现这两个目标的途径，特别是如果它有助于增强营养不足儿童的母亲的能力。然而，孕产妇就业可以通过不同的机制影响儿童营养，其净效应不一定是积极的。我们开发了一个理论模型，以表明孕产妇就业可以通过收入、家庭内部议价能力和可用于育儿的时间的变化来影响儿童营养。使用来自坦桑尼亚农村农户的面板数据对这些联系进行了实证分析。我们发现产妇就业与儿童年龄别身高 Z 分数 (HAZ) 之间的联系是非线性的。在劳动力供应水平较低的情况下，非农就业与儿童 HAZ 呈负相关。该关联在劳动力供应水平较高时变为正值，在非常高的水平时再次变为负值。母亲在农场工作与儿童营养之间的关联较弱且无统计学意义。这些发现有助于更好地设计发展干预措施，以促进协同作用并避免女性赋权与儿童营养目标之间的潜在权衡。