This paper examines the intra-gender nutrition outcome both with and without the presence of household level shock using Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Survey (LSMS) panel data in Ethiopia. We used a mixed-effect estimation strategy to analyze how parents’ gender preference affects resource allocation between boys and girls, and nutrition outcomes. We used a gender dummy and found that child gender dummy interaction with household level shock index variables does not have a significant effect on child nutrition. The results indicate that nutrition equality could be due to (1) the girls’ biological bodily development that causes differences in trouble tolerance such that the girls’ nutrition remains the same as that of boys and (2) the boys’ physical exercises which cause weight loss such that it brings their nutrition down making it equal to that of the girls’. The results suggest the need for energy food supplementation for boys and a need for equal care for both girls and boys.

This study examines the effects of the urban productive safety net programme (uPSNP) on urban households’ food insecurity (FIN) and children’s school attendance in Tigray, Ethiopia. Data were collected from 333 urban households between August and September 2020. The FGT index was used to compute households’ food insecurity intensity level, while the propensity score matching (PSM) technique was employed to examine the effect of the uPSNP on the food insecurity of urban households. The results indicated that approximately 56.7% of uPSNP beneficiaries were food-secure and able to consume an average of 2469.964 kcal per adult equivalent. Most importantly, uPSNP beneficiaries headed by women (50.8%) were more food-secure than non-beneficiaries headed by men (5.9%). Furthermore, the children of beneficiaries of the uPSNP attended school more often than the children of non-beneficiaries. This study highlights the need to scale up the uPSNP to address household food insecurity.