Effects of Food Assistance Programs, Demographic Characteristics, and Living Environments on Children’s Food Insecurity

Abstract

The objective of this study is to examine impacts of food assistance programs, demographic characteristics, and socioeconomic status of households on children’s food insecurity in U.S. Annual cross-sectional and pseudo-panel analyses with fixed effect regressions are conducted in this study using probit and truncated regressions. The simultaneous equation procedure is applied to address the endogeneity problem caused by the reverse influence of food insecurity on participation of food programs. Results show that some government-sponsored food programs are effective in alleviating the children’s food insecurity problem, and demographic characteristics and living environments are important factors in determining the status of children’s food insecurity. Our results also manifest the importance of considering the endogeneity problem of food program variables in evaluating the effectiveness of food programs.