Impact of weather shocks, nutrition and household care on child health

Future projections of climate change continue to dominate the policy debate worldwide, though their effects on health and household welfare are not well-understood, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Rural households heavily rely on agricultural activities for their livelihood, and their welfare is affected by both rainfall and temperature shocks. This dissertation examines how children's health is affected by weather shocks and intrahousehold resource allocation in the context of Mali.;In the first two chapters of dissertation, I develop a theoretical model of climate mechanism affecting infant and child mortality. I propose a unique identification strategy for three climate channels: disease environment, agricultural income and heat stress. Applying survival analysis, I find significant effects of rainfall and temperature shocks on a child's survival time. I also find that high rainfall amount during growing season and heat stress during dry season negatively affect an infant's survival in rural areas, but not in urban areas. The findings from the first two chapters suggest that with increased variability in future climate projections, policies targeting healthcare in rural communities should take a priority in mitigating the risk of child death in the future.;In the third chapter, I investigate the effects of polygyny on child health controlling for weather conditions. Using the gender of the firstborn as an instrumental variable for marrying an additional wife, I find that a child's nutritional status in terms of height-for-age and weight-for-age z-scores is worse in polygynous households compared to in monogamous households. Second, I analyze the effect of mother's rank among co-wives on her own child's health and find that mother's rank has a statistically significant effect on a child's nutritional status. However, the effect of mother's rank changes across different institutions of polygyny: depending on the ethnic group, the co-wife relationship could be more collaborative than competitive. The findings suggest a more nuanced view of polygyny than currently found in the literature: the effect of the institution of polygyny depends upon the rules governing behavior within the institution.