School feeding and children’s noncognitive skills: Evidence from the Nutrition Improvement Program in rural China

ABSTRACTABSTRACT The health and education consequences of school feeding programs have been well established, however, evidence regarding such programs' spillover effects on children's noncognitive skills remains scarce. Using the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), this study examines the association between the Nutrition Improvement Program (NIP), which provides free school meals to eligible rural students, and children's Big Five noncognitive skills. The results show that the school feeding program significantly improves children's noncognitive outcomes, especially among students who are girls, left behind by parents, non-only-child, have a local hukou, live in low-income households, and have low levels of positive personality traits. Our main findings are robust to a battery of specifications and validity tests. In addition, we further explore the possible mechanisms and find that child health, cognitive skills, peer relationship, family economic status, and parenting behaviours are the potential channels through which participating in the school feeding program positively affects children's noncognitive development. Our findings suggest that school feeding should not only be treated as a nutrition or education scheme, but also as a transfer program that fosters children's development beyond health and academic outcomes.KEYWORDS: School feedingNutrition improvement programNoncognitive skillshuman capitalChina AcknowledgementsXiaodong Zheng acknowledges the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number: 72003173), Humanities and Social Science Fund of the Ministry of Education of China (Grant number: 20YJC790187), National Statistical Science Research Project (Grant number: 2021LY095), Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, China (Grant number: LY21G030008), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Provincial Universities of Zhejiang (Grant number: XR202206). Xiangming Fang acknowledges the financial support from the National Social Science Fund of China (21AJL015).Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)Supplementary materialSupplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2022.2156472.Additional informationFundingThe work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [72003173], National Social Science Fund of China [21AJL015], Humanities and Social Science Fund of the Ministry of Education of China [20YJC790187], National Statistical Science Research Project [2021LY095], Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, China [LY21G030008], and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Provincial Universities of Zhejiang [XR202206].