Intergenerational Effects of Stunting on Human Capital: Where Does the Compass Point?

Development of any nation hinges on its human capital. Human capital formation starts from early stages of childhood. Early childhood nutrition is one of the determinants of improved health and development. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of nutrition in impacting cognitive development, education attainment and skill development, which are the determinants of human capital. This is an attempt to analyse the intrinsic relationship between stunting and its intergenerational impact on human capital. Systemic review of literature method was put to use, to analyse the interactions between stunting and human capital. The search criteria limited the period to 30 years (1986-2017) and relevant to childhood nutrition. The search was drawn from PubMed, Web of Science and relevant independent surveys, journals and reports of repute. The study reveals that the human capital formation starts from the early stages of childhood and healthy childhood holds positive relationship to formation of human capital in the long run. Healthy childhood is largely attributed to improved nutrition which has an impact on underweight, wasting and stunting. While improvement in underweight and wasting can be achieved in short run, stunting is intergenerational and needs more long-term investments. Both nutrition specific as well as nutrition sensitive interventions play a critical role in development of robust human capital that leads to improved employability and enhanced earnings for an individual in the future. However, to have an impact on stunting, it calls for a shift in focus by augmenting investments towards nutrition sensitive domain as well, along with its present focus in nutrition specific domain. We use the evidences from South Asian and Sub Saharan countries, to make a case for India where 38 percent of children are stunted and where WASH, agriculture and women empowerment programmes do not focus on nutrition nor measure nutritional outcomes.