Empowered mothers and co-resident grandmothers: Two fundamental roles of women impacting child health outcomes in Punjab, Pakistan.

We show that i) empowered mothers and ii) coresident grandmothers each benefit children's nutritional health measured by height-for-age z-scores (HAZ) and weight-for-age z-scores (WAZ) for age groups 5 years and less. First, using cross-sectional data from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) for the year 2017-18, we estimate the impact of empowered mothers on child health outcomes using an instrumental variable approach to correct for endogeneity. Empowerment is measured by two indices: as a sum of the questions that gauge both attitudinal and behavioral dimensions of female agency and also and using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) for these same questions.