Hunger and Performance in the Classroom

49 Pages Posted: 23 Sep 2019

See all articles by Farzana Afridi

Farzana Afridi

Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

Bidisha Barooah

International Initiative for Impact Evaluation

Rohini Somanathan

University of Delhi - Department of Economics

Abstract

Hunger and malnourishment can adversely affect students' performance by lowering their effort and cognition during school hours. We conduct a lab-in-the field experiment, leveraging the extension of India's school meal program from primary to middle grades, to study the effects of school-based supplementary nutrition on students' cognitive effort in the classroom. Using individual level data on the performance of students in a cognitive task both before and after the extension of the program as well as pre and post meal recess on a school day, we find that the provision of meals improved the cognitive performance of students by 13% to 16%. This result is robust to unobserved heterogeneity in school quality and student ability. Our findings suggest that short-term improvements in classroom attention and effort due to school meals can be a mechanism through which longer-term learning outcomes may improve in developing countries.

Keywords: school meals, malnourishment, performance, classroom, maze puzzles, India

JEL Classification: I21, I25, H52

Suggested Citation

Afridi, Farzana and Barooah, Bidisha and Somanathan, Rohini, Hunger and Performance in the Classroom. IZA Discussion Paper No. 12627, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3457671 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3457671

Farzana Afridi (Contact Author)

Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata ( email )

203 B.T. Road
Kolkata, West Bengal 700108
India

Bidisha Barooah

International Initiative for Impact Evaluation ( email )

1625 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Suite 450
Washington, DC 20036
United States

Rohini Somanathan

University of Delhi - Department of Economics ( email )

Delhi-110007
India

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
1,383
Abstract Views
4,607
Rank
27,928
PlumX Metrics