Urbanization and Child Nutritional Outcomes - Investigating the Role of Nighttime Light Intensity

Jul 19, 2026

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The study examines how urbanization affects child nutritional outcomes using satellite-based nighttime light intensity as an indicator of urbanization, combined with two rounds of Nigeria’s Demographic and Health Survey data. Nighttime light creates a gradient that supports analysis across a rural-to-urban continuum. Nightlight significantly predicts nutritional outcomes even after adjusting for observable covariates. Improvements begin at low light emissions, rise rapidly, then level off, revealing nonlinear patterns and supporting urban agglomeration benefits for welfare.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

Introduction

Urban-rural gaps in child nutrition

Limits of traditional binary urbanization measures

Satellite nighttime light as an urbanization marker

Pub lic Disclosure Authorized Pub lic Disclosure Authorized The World Bank Economic Review, 34(1), 2020, 63–74 doi: 10.1093/wber/lhy015 Article Urbanization and Child Nutritional Outcomes Mulubrhan Amare, Channing Arndt, Kibrom A. Abay, and Todd Benson Abstract The implications of urbanization on child nutritional outcomes are investigated using satellite-based nighttime light intensity data as a marker of urbanization with data from two rounds of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey. Nighttime light introduces a gradient of urbanization permitting investigation of the implications of urbanization on child nutritional outcomes along an urbanization continuum. Nightlight is found to significantly predict child nutritional outcomes even after controlling for observable covariates known to influence child nutrition. In all specifications, improvements in child nutrition outcomes onset with relatively low levels of light emissions and continue rapidly as nightlight intensity increases before largely leveling off. These nonlinear relationships highlight the value of nightlight as a population agglomeration indicator relative to traditional binary rural-urban indicators. Consistent with other recent work, patterns of urbanization influence welfare outcomes. At least for Nigeria, a pattern that extends the benefits of urban agglomeration to larger shares of the population would speed improvements to child nutritional outcomes. JEL classification: I15, O18 Keywords: child nutritional outcomes, malnutrition, urbanization, nighttime light 1. Introduction Existing studies almost invariably find that child nutritional outcomes are better on average in urban than in rural areas of developing countries (Garrett and Ruel 1999; Menon, Ruel, and Morris 2000; Smith, Ruel, and Ndiaye 2005; Paciorek et al. 2014) . This remains largely the case even after controlling for a series of observable related factors, though children from the lowest socioeconomic quintile often have similar stunting rates in rural and urban areas (Garrett and Ruel 1999; Menon, Ruel, and Morris 2000) . Nevertheless, the ongoing rapid process of urbanization in Africa (Paciorek et al. 2014) would appear to broadly support progress in improving child nutritional outcomes through the benefits of population agglomeration. Beyond these generalities, data limitations have restricted what can be concluded with respect to the relationship between urbanization and nutrition. Two data limitations are in focus here. First, key surveys, such as the Demographic and Health Surveys, employ census-or survey-based (normally binary) measures of urbanization. These measures fail to fully capture the heterogeneity of urban areas. Rather than a binary phenomenon, urbanization is a continuum reflecting a rural-to-urban transformation process (Calì and Mulubrhan Amare (corresponding author) is an Associate Research Fellow in the Development Strategy and Governance Division (DSGD) of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), based in Washington, DC; his email address is[m.amare@cgiar.org. Channing Arndt](m.amare@cgiar.org. Channing Arndt) is the director of the Environment & Production Technology Division of IFPRI, based in Washington, DC; his email address is [c.arndt@cgiar.org. Kibrom A. Abay is](c.arndt@cgiar.org. Kibrom A. Abay is) a post-doctoral fellow at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI); his email address [is kibroma12@gmail.com. Todd Benson is a Senior Research Fellow in](is kibroma12@gmail.com. Todd Benson is a Senior Research Fellow in)[ ](is kibroma12@gmail.com. Todd Benson is a Senior Research Fellow in)DSGD of IFPRI, based in Washington, DC; his email address is [t.benson@cgiar.org](t.benson@cgiar.org). © The Author(s) 2018 . Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / THE WORLD BANK. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative

FAQs

How does the study measure urbanization?

It uses satellite-based nighttime light intensity as a proxy for urbanization and urban expansion.

What data supports the analysis?

The study combines nighttime light data with two rounds of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey.

What pattern does the study find between nighttime light intensity and child nutrition?

Child nutrition improvements start at relatively low light levels, increase rapidly, and then largely level off as intensity rises.

Jul 19, 2026

Upload by Quinn