The Mortality Divide in India: The Differential Contributions of Gender, Caste, and Standard of Living Across the Life Course

Abstract

The mortality burden, across the life course in India, falls disproportionately on economically disadvantaged and lower-caste groups. Residual state-level variation in mortality suggests an underlying ecology to the mortality divide in India.

What Factors Predict Exposure to Caste, Political and Religious Violence in India? A Cross – Sectional Survey of 1000 Indian Men

“…Caste-related violence, however, showed no differences between age-groups, illustrating a perhaps expected pattern that caste-related dynamics and subsequent exposure to violence persists over the life course. This reinforces previous work in India indicating the persistence of health inequalities related to caste/class over the life course (Subramanian et al, 2006). That is, it is still extremely difficult to surpass caste and class structures in these two states, particularly in Uttar Pradesh.…”

“…This study shows that lower income levels greatly increase the likelihood of exposure to caste and political violence, indicating that income acts as an insulator from various forms of social inequality and forms of aggression and/or violence (Subramanian et al, 2006). While this is perhaps not surprising, it remains an important fact that poorer men are more likely to experience, be involved in, and be the victims of violence.…”

A Systematic Review of the Literature on the Relationship between Caste Membership and Health-Related Risk Factors in India

“…Odds ratios were the highest in ST, for both smoking (OR = 1.27, 95% CI = 1.20-1.33), and smoking combined with chewing (OR = 1.23, 95% CI = 1.18-1.29), followed by SC for smoking (OR = 1.16 95% CI = 1.12-1.20), and chewing (OR = 1.15, 95% CI = 1.11-1.18), and combined together (OR = 1.19, 95% CI = 1.16-1.23). 24,25,26,23 The children of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were at a higher risk of developing anaemia (OR = 2.3: 95% CI = 1.3-3.9) and Vitamin A deficiency-VAD (OR = 4.5; 95% CI = 2.1-10.5) in comparison to the reference groups. Highest risk of VAD was reported (13 times higher) among children belonging to the Scheduled Caste (OR = 12.8, 95% CI = 5.5-29.5) in comparison to ST and OBC (5).…”

“…22 Health-related risk behaviours (i.e. smoking tobacco, chewing tobacco and drinking alcohol) were assessed in four studies 24,25,26,23 with odds ratios varying from 1.00-11.39. Caste differentials were also reported in smoking with the odds being highest for Scheduled Tribes-ST (OR 187 = 2.51, 95% CI = 1.89-2.45), followed by Scheduled Castes-ST (OR = 1.78, 95 CI-1.61-1.96) and Other Backward Classes-OBC (OR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.14-1.38) (24; 25).…”

“…Table 4 summarizes the state based variation in odd ratios for caste differentials in body mass index and anemia. 21 State-based variation in statistically significant odds ratios for Mortalities were also reported in select age groups 26 and are summarized in Table 5. Presumably, richer areas in India are likely to perform better than poorer ones, demonstrating the caste differentials in odds of child mortality by the economic status of the district in India (Figure 2).…”