A matching decomposition of the rural-urban difference in malnutrition in Malawi

This paper applies a nonparametric matching method to decompose the rural-urban malnutrition gap in Malawi. The results show that 90 per cent and 89 per cent of the stunting and underweight gaps respectively would be eliminated if there were no urban children with combinations of characteristics which positively influence child nutrition that remain entirely unmatched by rural children. Further to that, 4 per cent and 6 per cent of the stunting and underweight gaps respectively would disappear if there were no rural children with combinations of characteristics which negatively affect child nutrition that remain entirely unmatched by urban children