The Effect of Child Health on Poverty in Indonesia

Abstract

Despite economic growth, Indonesia continues to face high rates of child malnutrition, particularly stunting and wasting. This study examines how poverty influences child health outcomes using provincial panel data from 33 provinces (2012–2022). The Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) is employed to address endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity. Results show that child stunting as well as child wasting has a positive and significant effect on poverty, indicating that poorer households face greater nutritional challenges. In contrast, access to clean water and household electricity significantly reduces poverty, highlighting the importance of basic utilities in combating poverty. Health expenditure and environmental factors also play notable roles. These findings emphasize the need for integrated policy approaches that link child wellbeing, infrastructure access, and nutrition-sensitive interventions to achieve poverty reduction and advance Indonesia’s vision for sustainable development. This study has a limitation to not include some new provinces in Indonesia due to unavailability of data as well as sample with short data period. The findings will have an implication of the importance of government to focus on socioeconomics factors such as infrastructures, nutrition intake to achieve better child wellbeing which later will reduce the poverty rate.