Child growth in the time of drought

This paper examines the impact of rainfall shocks on a measure of child hea lth, growth in height, drawing on a unique household panel data set from ru ral Zimbabwe. We find that children aged 12 to 24 months lose 1.5-2 cm of g rowth in the aftermath of a drought. Catch-up growth in these children is l imited so that this growth faltering has a permanent effect. By contrast, t here is no evidence that older children experience a slowdown in growth. Th ere is some evidence that the loss in growth is unequally distributed with children residing in poorer households and offspring of women who are daugh ters of the household head appearing to be especially vulnerable.