Beyond the Private Sphere: Women's Community Participation and Household Diet Quality in Rural China

ABSTRACT Improving diet quality remains a key challenge in post‐poverty rural China. This study examines how women's community participation, a form of public‐sphere agency, relates to household diet quality. We introduce a Food‐Weighted Dietary Diversity Index (FWDDI) that captures variation in diet quality beyond adequacy thresholds in broadly adequate settings and apply it to a three‐wave household panel. Fixed‐effects estimates show a positive association between women's community participation and household diet quality. This association is reflected in broader and more nutrient‐dense diets, with little change in consumption frequency, and in the corresponding pattern in women's intrahousehold decision‐making, consistent with information diffusion and women's decision influence as plausible pathways. This association is concentrated in women's participation in economic activities, among ever‐registered‐poor households and in villages with male agricultural wage premiums. These findings point to women's public engagement, especially in economic activities, as a potential channel for improving household diet quality, particularly where household resource constraints are tighter and women are at a wage disadvantage in local labour markets.