Gender differentials in infant mortality by various socioeconomic groups in India

Bharath Kumar Kotta Shantharam, Sigma Research and Consulting Pvt Ltd

This paper aims to examine the gender differential in infant mortality among socioeconomic groups using data from three round of Demographic Health Survey, India. Though there is a significant reduction in IMR over a period of fifteen years, inversely the male-female gap has widened drastically. But, the decline over the vicissitude has biased against the poor strata as the inequality has increased irrespective of gender and the lowest wealth quintile has higher death rates compared to its counterparts. Logistic regression shows a descending trend and an inverse relationship. Also, the likelihood of child death in poorer socioeconomic strata has increased over time. While the socioeconomic inequality of male children exceeds female children, the poor: rich ratio shows different scenario where a wide gap exists within socioeconomic groups in female children than male children. Further, ranking of Indian states shows a distinct variation in the gender gap in the IMR.