Market Availability and Household Consumption of Pasteurized Milk: A Propensity Score Matching Analysis in Sri Lanka

This paper examines the impact of daily availability of pasteurized milk on household consumption in Sri Lanka. Data were collected from 230 randomly selected households in the Jaffna and Nallur Divisional Secretariat divisions. To address potential selection bias in market availability, the analysis employs nearest-neighbour propensity score matching (PSM) to estimate the Average Treatment Effect (ATE) and the Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATET). The results show that daily availability of non-flavoured pasteurized milk increases household consumption by approximately 238 ml per week for the overall population and by 214 ml per week among households with access to daily supply. These findings indicate that limited market availability represents a significant constraint on pasteurized milk consumption in Sri Lanka, contributing to the continued reliance on milk powder. The results highlight importance of improving distribution systems and retail availability to promote the consumption of nutritious fresh milk and strengthen the domestic dairy sector.Copyright© 2026 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the license CC-BY 4.0., which permits any further distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Article’s history: Received 31st of October, 2025; Revised 29th of November, 2025; Accepted 1st of March, 2026; Available online: 15th of March, 2026. Published as article in the Volume XXI, Special Issue 1(91), 2026.