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Gender gap in parents' financing strategy for hospitalization of their children: evidence from India

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  • Abay Asfaw
  • Francesca Lamanna
  • Stephan Klasen

Abstract

The ‘missing women’ dilemma in India has sparked great interest in investigating gender discrimination in the provision of health care in the country. No studies, however, have directly examined discrimination in health‐care financing strategies in the case of severe illness of sons versus daughters. In this paper, we hypothesize that households who face tight budget constraints are more likely to spend their meager resources on hospitalization of boys rather than girls. We use the 60th round of the Indian National Sample Survey (2004) and a multinomial logit model to test this hypothesis and to throw some light on this important but overlooked issue. The results reveal that boys are much more likely to be hospitalized than girls. When it comes to financing, the gap in the usage of household income and savings is relatively small, while the gender gap in the probability of hospitalization and usage of more onerous financing strategies is very high. Ceteris paribus, the probability of boys to be hospitalized by financing from borrowing, sale of assets, help from friends, etc. is much higher than that of girls. Moreover, in line with our theoretical framework, the results indicate that the gender gap intensifies as we move from the richest to poorest households. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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  • Abay Asfaw & Francesca Lamanna & Stephan Klasen, 2010. "Gender gap in parents' financing strategy for hospitalization of their children: evidence from India," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(3), pages 265-279, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:19:y:2010:i:3:p:265-279
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.1468
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    Cited by:

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    3. Wu, Wenqing & Zhu, Dongyang & Liu, Wenyi & Wu, Chia-Huei, 2022. "Empirical research on smart city construction and public health under information and communications technology," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
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    6. Ebert, Cara & Vollmer, Sebastian, 2022. "Girls unwanted – The role of parents’ child-specific sex preference for children’s early mental development," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    7. Paula von Haaren & Stefan Klonner, 2021. "Lessons learned? Intended and unintended effects of India's second‐generation maternal cash transfer scheme," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(10), pages 2468-2486, September.
    8. Marcello Perez-Alvarez & Marta Favara, "undated". "Maternal Age and Offspring Human Capital in India," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 262, Courant Research Centre PEG.
    9. Kumar, Kaushalendra & Singh, Abhishek & James, K.S. & McDougal, Lotus & Raj, Anita, 2020. "Gender bias in hospitalization financing from borrowings, selling of assets, contribution from relatives or friends in India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    10. Pulver, Ariel & Ramraj, Chantel & Ray, Joel G. & O'Campo, Patricia & Urquia, Marcelo L., 2016. "A scoping review of female disadvantage in health care use among very young children of immigrant families," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 50-60.
    11. Dutta, Nabamita & Kar, Saibal, 2022. "Lockdown and Rural Joblessness in India: Gender Inequality in Employment?," IZA Discussion Papers 15270, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Scott South & Katherine Trent & Sunita Bose, 2012. "India’s ‘Missing Women’ and Men’s Sexual Risk Behavior," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 31(6), pages 777-795, December.
    13. Mondal, Bidisha & Dubey, Jay Dev, 2020. "Gender discrimination in health-care expenditure: An analysis across the age-groups with special focus on the elderly," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    14. Stephan Klasen & Rahul Lahoti, 2021. "How Serious is the Neglect of Intra‐Household Inequality in Multidimensional Poverty and Inequality Analyses? Evidence from India," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(3), pages 705-731, September.
    15. Adnan M.S. Fakir & Tushar Bharati, 2022. "Health Costs of a "Healthy Democracy": The Impact of Peaceful Political Protests on Healthcare Utilization," Working Paper Series 0522, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    16. Tushar Bharati & Adnan M. S. Fakir, 2022. "Health Costs of a “Healthy Democracy”: The Impact of Peaceful Political Protests on Healthcare Utilization," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 22-15, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    17. Abbasi Hossein A. & Karimi Seyed M., 2017. "Children’s Gender and Men’s Income: Evidence from Iran," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 1-19, April.
    18. Momoe Makino, 2018. "Birth Order and Sibling Sex Composition Effects Among Surviving Children in India: Enrollment Status and Test Scores," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 56(3), pages 157-196, September.
    19. Kaul, Tara, 2018. "Intra-household allocation of educational expenses: Gender discrimination and investing in the future," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 336-343.
    20. Marcelloa Perez-Alvarez & Marta Favara, 2020. "Early Motherhood and Offspring Human Capital in India," CSAE Working Paper Series 2020-15, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    21. repec:awi:wpaper:0689 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Espinoza-Delgado, José & López-Laborda, Julio, 2016. "Las tres Is de la pobreza multidimensional en Nicaragua y el diferencial de género en los primeros quince años del siglo XXI, a partir de un enfoque centrado en la persona [The three I’s of multidi," MPRA Paper 74997, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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