Research Report
Nutritional Inequality and Persisting Social Gradients: Evidence from NFHS
Rajesh Raushan
India has experienced substantial improvements in child nutrition over the long term, but national averages conceal pronounced district-level and social inequalities. Earlier NFHS based research documented a decline in stunting from about 54 percent in 1992-93 to 38 percent in 2015-16 which further declined and reached to 29 percent during 2023-24, latest round of NFHS-6 revealed. Whereas wasted children remained concentrated around 19 percent between 2005/06 and 2023/24. Still only one-fifth of 6-23 months children receiving adequate diet, although it progressed from 9 percent (2019/21). Notably, evidences of regional and socio-economic inequality persist. The high prevalence is particularly evident in parts of eastern and central India. The SC and ST children still bear high burden of malnutrition. The regions having poor outcomes on one indicator are linked with deteriorated outcomes on the other indicators extracted on factor loadings on selected health, nutrition and socio-economic and locational factors.
Taken together, these findings suggest that India's nutrition challenge is not simply one of average prevalence, but of where children live and the social circumstances in which they grow. Analysis provides district level disparities have narrowed over time and whether improvements have been equally distributed across wealth groups, caste/social groups, maternal education and rural-urban populations. Such evidence can help identify persistent nutrition hotspots and socially disadvantaged populations, providing a stronger basis for geographically targeted and equity led nutrition interventions.
