The effect of economic crises on nutritional status: evidence from Russia.

Steven Stillman, Labour Markets Policy Group, Department of Labour (with Duncan Thomas)

Abstract

This paper uses data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) to examine the effect of unanticipated fluctuations in income on nutrient intake and nutritional status. Russian households have experienced large reductions in income and expenditure during the transition period, with a particularly severe decline occurring in the fall of 1998. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that the quality of health care available in Russia has declined precipitously, and that the average Russian faces a reduced lifespan and a lower quality of life. We evaluate four measures of nutrition - gross caloric intake, two dimensions of diet quality, and BMI which is a measure of net energy intake. We find that there is a clear positive effect of long-run resources on caloric intake, diet composition, and BMI. In contrast to the large decline in food expenditure in 1998, energy intake appears to be very resilient to variation in income and this is reflected in gross caloric intake and BMI, which both change very little as income deviates from its long-run average. This is true for adults as well as for typically vulnerable groups, such as young women and the elderly. Diet composition, however, does change in response to transitory income variation. It appears that individuals and households are able to weather large income shocks at least in terms of maintaining body mass and energy intake.

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