The only available nationally representative data on the Roma populations in the Western Balkans come from UNICEF MICS surveys. The surveys estimated conditions of women and their children (aged 0–59 months), and collected data on basic parenting practices (direct child care), allomaternal support child anthropometrics, and also unwanted childbearing among Roma mothers for all live births for the two-year period prior to the surveys (for children aged 0–24 months). Evidence of bias in parental investment in early childhood from traditional societies is limited: the cross-national data addressing the effects of key child and maternal characteristics that may be associated with biased parental investment is limited. From a Life History perspective, it is expected that a higher reproductive value of a child should correspond to higher levels of any measure of investment. Child outcomes such as weight at birth, height, and nutritional outcomes are often used as estimates of investment made by parents. These inferences may be especially relevant for children coming from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, which may be at increased risk of nutritional deprivation. To assess the associations between parental investment, unwanted births and child nutritional outcomes, as well as country similarities and differences in parenting, data were retrieved from MICS rounds 4, 5 and 6 for Roma settlements in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.