Title:
DETERMINANTS OF STUNTING PROBABILITY AMONG CHILDREN IN BELU DISTRICT AND NORTH CENTRAL TIMOR, EAST NUSA TENGGARA PROVINCE

Authors:
Sirilius Seran, Maria Yanti Akoit, and Maria F.W.A. Fouk

Abstract:
Children with stunting are noticeably shorter in height and are skinnier than their peers. This condition arises from the malnourishment they encounter during their time in the womb and the two years following their birth. The parents’ socio-economic conditions can be one of the contributing factors that enhances the likelihood of a child experiencing stunting. This paper utilizes a sample of 300 households from North Central Timor and Belu regions as respondents. In this paper, the probability of stunting is labeled as variable categories 1 and 0. As a result, the appropriate inferential analysis tool to be employed is logistic regression. On the other hand, the independent variables are as follows: 1) income, 2) the wife’s employment status, 3) the wife’s education, 4) the husband’s education, and 5) birth spacing. The analysis result proves that only the birth spacing variable has a negative relationship (-0.332) but is not statistically significant (Sign.) in relation to the probability of stunting in children under five years old. The likelihood of children experiencing stunting is higher when the parents have a low income, 3 to 4 times higher than parents with a higher income. On the other hand, the risk of stunting for children with fathers having low educational levels is 3,759 times higher compared to those with higher education

Keywords:
Education, job, income, stunting, birth.

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37500/IJESSR.2023.6323