Vol.:(0123456789) Environment, Development and Sustainability https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-03183-3 1 3 The role of women’s empowerment on child nutrition in India: a longitudinal analysis Poulami Chatterjee 1  · Amaresh Dubey 2 Received: 30 September 2022 / Accepted: 9 March 2023 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023 Abstract Child malnutrition remains a pervasive problem in India though there are signifcant improvements in several health indicators with country’s consistent economic growth. Along with other factors, maternal autonomy is considered to be critical in infuencing health outcome of a child. This paper attempts to examine the determinants of nutritional measures of children under age fve with the focus to the role of mother’s autonomy in India. There are studies which link characteristics of mother, like education, age, with nutrition of her children. But maternal autonomy is a complex subject as this variable is not tangible. Women’s autonomy in daily life is more likely to result in their better healthcare which in turn infuences children’s birth weight and infant nutrition. We used nationally representative India Human Development Survey 2004–05 (IHDS- 1) and 2011–12 (IHDS 2) data for the analysis. This paper studies the association between maternal autonomy and childhood stunting, the indicator of chronic malnutrition, and the risk of having a stunted child. We have also used the panel data using both waves of IHDS and used mothers fxed efect model to evaluate the impact of maternal autonomy. The autonomy index is created using four dimensions-women’s decision making, freedom of movement, fnancial auton- omy and attitude toward domestic violence. The two dimensions of autonomy—physical autonomy, fnancial autonomy—remain signifcant determinants for childhood stunting. Keywords Women empowerment · Malnutrition · Childhood stunting · Panel data · India human development survey JEL Classifcation C23 · I14 · I18 * Poulami Chatterjee poulamichatterjee@sxuk.edu.in Amaresh Dubey amareshdubey@mail.jnu.ac.in 1 Economics Department, St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata, India 2 Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India