Health and Well-Being in India (eBook)

Vani Kant Borooah is Emeritus Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Ulster. He is a past President of the European Public Choice Society and of the Irish Economic Association. He was elected a Member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2006. His work has been mainly in the areas of unemployment, inequality, poverty, and economic development. His most recent publications are Europe in an Age of Austerity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Caste, Discrimination, and Exclusion in Modern India (2015); Education in a Divided Society (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and Votes, Parties, and Seats: A Quantitative Analysis of India Parliamentary Elections, 1962-2014 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

Preface 7
Contents 10
List of Figures 11
List of Tables 13
1 Health Outcomes and Policy in India 16
1.1Introduction 16
1.2Out-of-Pocket Health Expenses 21
1.3Publicly Financed Health Care 25
1.4Regulating Private Medicine 30
1.5Health Workers in India 34
1.6The Way Forward 36
1.7The Plan of This Book 39
References 40
2 Sanitation and Hygiene 44
2.1Introduction 44
2.2A Preliminary Look at the Data 49
2.3Specifying the Demand for Toilets Equation 52
The Method of Recycled Predictions 58
2.4Measuring the Development Demonstration Effect 61
2.5Analysing Differences Within Less and More Developed Villages 66
2.6Post-Defecation Hand Washing 70
2.7Conclusions 75
References 79
3 India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Programme 81
3.1Introduction 81
3.2Benefits Under the ICDS 84
3.3Estimating the Strength of Factors Influencing the Utilisation of Anganwadi Services 88
3.4An Analytical Model for Decomposing the Probabilities of Utilising Anganwadi Services 97
Some Methodological Qualifications 101
3.5Decomposition Results 101
3.6The Link Between the Quality of Anganwadi Services and Their Utilisation 108
Universal Utilisation of ICDS 111
3.7Conclusions 113
References 115
4 Child Malnutrition 118
4.1Introduction 118
4.2A Preliminary Look at the Data 124
Measuring Inequality in the Inter-Group Distribution of Underweight and Stunted Children 128
4.3Econometric Analysis: Specifying the Low Weight and Stunting Equation 132
4.4Estimation Results 138
Malnutrition of Children from “Elite” Households 148
4.5Conclusions 149
References 152
5 The Health of Elderly Persons 155
5.1Introduction 155
5.2The Data 160
5.3Self-Rated Health Status 166
5.4Self-Rated Health, Social Experience and Observed Health Status 176
5.5The Ailments of Elderly Persons 180
5.6Concluding Remarks 184
Appendix 185
References 190
6 Deaths in the Family 194
6.1Introduction 194
6.2Health Data from the National Sample Survey for India 197
6.3The Age at Death in Households 199
6.4Infant and Child Deaths 211
6.5The Data for Infant and Child Deaths 214
6.6Estimation of the Infant and Child Mortality Equations 219
6.7Gender Bias in Infant and Child Deaths 225
6.8Conclusions 229
References 231
7 Inequality and Well-Being 234
7.1Introduction 234
7.2Equity-Sensitive Achievements 238
A Diagrammatic Analysis 240
7.3A Formal Analysis of Equity-Sensitive Indicators 242
The Welfare Effects of Redistribution 245
7.4The Equity-Sensitive Human Development Index: Theory 246
The Decomposition of the Human Development Index 248
7.5The Human Development Index: Practicalities 249
7.6Data and Analysis: The Component Indices 251
Aggregation Over Social Groups 256
7.7Explaining Intra-Household Variation in Performance Indices 258
7.8Conclusions 267
References 268
8 Summary and Conclusions 271
References 276
Index 277