Rural employment scheme is associated with less infant malnutrition, study finds

Infants from households participating in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act are less likely to suffer from undernutrition compared to those from non-participating households, a recent study has found.1

The act provides for a guaranteed minimum of 100 days’ employment a year for those households in which the adults volunteer for unskilled manual work.

The study was conducted in the Dungarpur district of Rajasthan, India, using a mixed methods design comprising both cross-sectional study and focus group discussions. A total of 528 households and 1056 participants (infants aged less than 12 months and their caregivers) were included in the final sample, …