Disease and Dowry: Community Context, Gender, and Adult Health in India

Abstract

Despite growing research on health and residential contexts, relatively little is understood about gendered contexts that are differentially important for women's and men's physical health in low-and middle-income countries. This study advances prior knowledge by examining whether the local frequency of a salient and gendered practice in India-dowry-is associated with gender differences in physical health (acute illness, illness length, and chronic illness). Analyses are conducted using multilevel logistic and negative binomial regression models and national data on men and women across India (N = 102,763). Results show that as dowry frequency increases in communities, not only do women have a greater likelihood of poor health across all three health outcomes, but men also have a greater likelihood of acute illness and illness length.Men, however, have lower likelihood of chronic illness as the frequency of dowry increases in communities. In the case of all three health outcomes, results showed consistently wider health gaps between men and women in communities with higher frequency of dowry. 5The dowry system is one such geographically patterned gendered practice, and community support for dowry practice may substantially contribute to gender-based health gaps across India. Prior research and theory suggest that the effects of dowry extend beyond dowrypracticing households; local prevalence of dowry can affect gendered exposure to an array of stressors and unequal resource allocations throughout a community, and these exposures are patterned by gender. Although dowry exchange has received considerable attention due to its growth, illegality, and links to various negative outcomes for women (Acharya, Sabarwal, and Jejeebhoy 2012;Basu 2001;Bloch and Rao 2002; Kumari 1989;Rocca et al. 2009), its consequences for adult physical health have not been documented. In this study, I contribute to literatures on gender and health, communities and health, social status and health, and geographic contexts in India. I do so by using national multilevel data from India (N = 102,763) to examine relationships between the community prevalence of a salient gendered practicedowry exchange-and gender differences in adult health. Importantly, I incorporate an array of controls for gender discrimination and SES to help isolate the community-level effects of dowry practice. Background and Hypotheses

Gender, Marital Status, and Mental Health: A Test of the Sex Role Hypothesis in India

“…Gender is more than a characteristic of the individual but can also be viewed as a macro-level phenomenon, in which gendered structures are embedded in every facet of social life. Researchers have recently suggested that women are vulnerable to mental health problems not simply because they are exposed to more stressors in their lives than are men but also because a society's institutions, such as education and marriage, impose fundamentally different constraints on women than they do on men (Stroope, 2015). Because every society structures its own institutions differently, the ways in which marriage matters for the mental health of men and women in India are culturally specific.…”