Economic Status and Adult Mortality in India: Is the Relationship Sensitive to Choice of Indicators?

Debasis Barik, Sonalde Desai () and Reeve Vanneman

World Development, 2018, vol. 103, issue C, 176-187

Abstract: Research on economic status and adult mortality is often stymied by the reciprocity of this relationship and lack of clarity on which aspect of economic status matters. While financial resources increase access to healthcare and nutrition and reduce mortality, sickness also reduces labor force participation, thereby reducing income. Without longitudinal data, it is difficult to study the linkage between economic status and mortality. Using data from a national sample of 132,116 Indian adults aged 15 years and above, this paper examines their likelihood of death between wave 1 of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), conducted in 2004–05 and wave 2, conducted in 2011–12. The results show that mortality between the two waves is strongly linked to the economic status of the household at wave 1 regardless of the choice of indicator for economic status. However, negative relationship between economic status and mortality for individuals already suffering from cardiovascular and metabolic conditions varies between three markers of economic status—income, consumption, and ownership of consumer durables—reflecting two-way relationship between short- and long-term markers of economic status and morbidity.

Keywords: adult mortality; health; morbidity; hypertension; wealth; SES; India; income; consumption; Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1730342X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:103:y:2018:i:c:p:176-187

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.10.018

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().