Misfortunes never come singly: structural change, shocks and child malnutrition in rural Senegal

In this study we consider the impact of drought and increasing prices shocks on child weight-for-age. The analysis is conducted with a multi-shock approach to account for concomitance of adverse events from the natural, biological, economic and health sphere. We use a unique dataset of children reported leaving in poor rural households in eight regions of Senegal in 2009 and 2011. The analysis relies on pooled-cross sections and accounts for structural changes occurring between survey periods. Results of drought (increasing prices) difference-in-difference econometric analyses show deterioration in child weight-for-age reaching 55% (20%) of the weight-for-age standard deviation in 2011. However, triple difference estimations accounting for drought and increasing prices concomitance show that weight-for-age for children experiencing both shocks is left unaffected. We argue that this last result is driven by the increase in rural household income and food security in the framework of the agricultural household model.