Rich-poor gap in utilisation of delivery care services in India, 1992-2005

Praveen Kumar Pathak, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

This paper examines the trends in utilisation of delivery care services by wealth status of households in India and three disparate states, namely, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu using data from three rounds of National Family Health Survey. In addition, the factors associated with delivery care and role of public and private services provider in catering to the needs of poor and non-poor is examined. Bivariate analyses, rich-poor ratio, concentration index and multivariate techniques are used to understand the trends in socioeconomic inequality in delivery care services. Preliminary result indicates that births assisted by skilled health professionals have increased in India and states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. However, inequalities in the coverage of delivery care remained substantially large over the years. Public institutions of delivery care are mostly used by the non-poor though the utilisation of delivery care from private health institutions is on the rise.