Female Headed Household in Bangladesh: An Alternative Approach to Attain Food Security

Abstract

Attaining food security remains as a foremost apprehension in the development endeavour of Bangladesh. The country has been successful in evading hunger through its policies of feeding the people more specifically with cereal. The Constitution of Bangladesh [Article 15(a)] recognizes the fundamental responsibility of the state is to secure to its citizens the provision of the basic necessities of life including nutritious foods. Bangladesh has been successfully able to attain food security for its people emphasizing only on increasing foodgrain availability. In the last three decades, even as its population has more than doubled, foodgrain availability has kept pace with population growth. Heavy dependence on foodgrain makes the people remain nutritionally in poor condition. This situation epitomize that there is disconnect between food policy of feeding the people with foodgrain and nutrition. Therefore to achieve food security in actual sense emphasis should be given on nutrition. Percentage of female headed household in Bangladesh is rising and it was 12.5% in 2014. Considering this view present study examine the impact of female headed household on the intake of major macronutrients i.e. carbohydrate, protein and fat and micronutrients i.e. vitamin. In the paper, to estimate the parameter the secondary data from the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (2010) of Bangladesh has been used. The data set included daily data on food consumption for consecutive 15 days for 12,240 households.  To estimate the parameters both Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equation (SURE) and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) has been used in the paper. It is found that female headed households have negative and significant impact on carbohydrate intake and positive and significant impact on fat intake. However female headed households have no such impact on protein and vitamin intake.  It is also found that from policies point of view these households will perform better. Attaining food security remains as a foremost apprehension in the development endeavour of Bangladesh. The country has been successful in evading hunger through its policies of feeding the people more specifically with cereal. The Constitution of Bangladesh [Article 15(a)] recognizes the fundamental responsibility of the state is to secure to its citizens the provision of the basic necessities of life including nutritious foods. Bangladesh has been successfully able to attain food security for its people emphasizing only on increasing foodgrain availability. In the last three decades, even as its population has more than doubled, foodgrain availability has kept pace with population growth. Heavy dependence on foodgrain makes the people remain nutritionally in poor condition. This situation epitomize that there is disconnect between food policy of feeding the people with foodgrain and nutrition. Therefore to achieve food security in actual sense emphasis should be given on nutrition. Percentage of female headed household in Bangladesh is rising and it was 12.5% in 2014. Considering this view present study examine the impact of female headed household on the intake of major macronutrients i.e. carbohydrate, protein and fat and micronutrients i.e. vitamin. In the paper, to estimate the parameter the secondary data from the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (2010) of Bangladesh has been used. The data set included daily data on food consumption for consecutive 15 days for 12,240 households.  To estimate the parameters both Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equation (SURE) and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) has been used in the paper. It is found that female headed households have negative and significant impact on carbohydrate intake and positive and significant impact on fat intake. However female headed households have no such impact on protein and vitamin intake.  It is also found that from policies point of view these households will perform better.