Gender and Inequality in Access to Healthcare Facilities in India: Evidence from NSSO’s 75th Round on Health

The present study attempts to explore gender-based gaps in access to quality healthcare at the pan-India level. To undertake our analyses using National Sample Survey Office’s secondary data, we prepared a Gender Parity Index to understand the nature and extent of gender differential in access and direct utilization of quality healthcare services. The results validate the proposed objective of the study, that is, females suffer from innate accessibility gaps in rural as well as urban India. Females not only lack access to general healthcare but are also devoid of quality healthcare. Males, often, have better access to general healthcare through private hospitals and clinics in conjunction with other sources. On the other hand, females are predominantly confined to the government and charitable medical institutions. Additionally, the results show that the brunt of these gaps in healthcare is borne relatively more by rural females than their urban female counterparts.