Inequality in Healthcare Access at the Intersection of Caste and Gender

Abstract

Health equity is of particular concern in the Indian context in the light of widening economic inequality and healthcare reforms which have wider ramifications on healthcare access. Despite various programs and interventions, a wide gap in health condition is observed in society among different castes, groups and income-classes. In this article, the inequality in healthcare access is studied at the cross-section of gender (man and women) and social groups—Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe (SC-ST), Other backward classes (OBC) and Others—and an attempt has been made to explore how much the women from SC-ST community are deprived of healthcare access in comparison to other gender-group intersections. To proceed with analysis, data on ‘National Sample Survey (NSS), 75th Round (2017–2018) on Health Consumptions’ are taken. Analyses are carried on in SPSS Ver.18 and Stata-16. Regression Analysis shows that women from SC-ST are 1.37 times more likely to non-access to healthcare services than men from the general category. Further, to measure the intensity of inequality in healthcare access, Wagstaff’s Concentration Index (CI) is calculated at –0.195 that shows income-related inequality highly persists among the poor. At last, the decomposition analysis of CI reveals that gender, income and social groups are some of the major contributory factors to CI, that is, health inequality. The results indicate despite the mandate of universal healthcare access, India is lagging in achieving equity in healthcare as the poor and marginalized are deprived of it.