Intra-Urban Differentials in Utilization of Reproductive and Child Health Care Services in India, 1992-05

Abhishek Kumar, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
S.K Mohanty, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

This paper examines intra-urban differentials in selected reproductive and child health care indicators in India and selected states, using data from three rounds of National Family Health Survey. The composite wealth index is computed based on economic proxies, separately for the urban sample and classified the population into poor and non-poor. Results indicate that estimates of poor and non-poor are quite reliable. It is found that antenatal care, safe delivery and immunization coverage has increased over the periods, among poor and non-poor in India and states with stark poor and non-poor differences. Interestingly, coverage of immunization was higher in rural areas than urban poor cutting across the states. Along with other factors, the poverty status of households is a significant determinant of utilization of reproductive and child health care services. Decomposition analysis reports that over 15 percent of the improvements in utilization of such services are attributable to the reduction of poverty across the states.