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The Puzzle of Muslim Advantage in Child Survival in India

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Author Info
Bhalotra, Sonia R. () (University of Bristol)
Valente, Christine () (University of Nottingham)
van Soest, Arthur () (Tilburg University)

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Abstract

The socio-economic status of Indian Muslims is, on average, considerably lower than that of upper caste Hindus. Muslims have higher fertility and shorter birth spacing and are a minority group that, it has been argued, have poorer access to public goods. They nevertheless exhibit substantially higher child survival rates, and have done for decades. This paper documents and analyses this seeming puzzle. The religion gap in survival is much larger than the gender gap but, in contrast to the gender gap, it has not received much political or academic attention. A decomposition of the survival differential reveals that some compositional effects favour Muslims but that, overall, differences in characteristics between the communities and especially the Muslim deficit in parental education predict a Hindu advantage. Alternative outcomes and specifications support our finding of a Muslim fixed effect that favours survival. The results of this study contribute to a recent literature that debates the importance of socioeconomic status (SES) in determining health and survival. They augment a growing literature on the role of religion or culture as encapsulating important unobservable behaviours or endowments that influence health, indeed, enough to reverse the SES gradient that is commonly observed.

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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 4009.

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Length: 58 pages
Date of creation: Feb 2009
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4009

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Related research
Keywords: religion; caste; gender; child survival; anthropometrics; Hindu; Muslim; India;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
O12 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production
J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities and Races; Non-labor Discrimination
J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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    Other versions:
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    Other versions:
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    Other versions:
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