Gender Differentials in Out of Pocket Health Expenditure Among Older Adults in India: Evidence from National Sample Survey 2014 and 2018

Abstract

The proportion of older adults are increasing at a much higher rate than ever expected in both developing and developed countries, and India is no exception. High health care expenditure is attributed to deteriorating health condition among older adult following disability in later life stages and also due to the presence of chronic diseases, and multi-morbidity among them as life expectancy has substantially increased in last few decades. Data for the analysis was used from the National Sample Survey Organization conducted during the 71st (2014) and 75th round (2017-18). Descriptive statistics, bivariate analysis, and linear regression were used for the study. It was found that mean OOPE for older adults was high if the household head was an older adult in case of both men and women. Older adults from higher socio-economic status incurred high OOPE. Moreover, older adults who were financially independent incurred high OOPE compared to those who were partially or fully economically dependent. More interestingly, financially independent women incur higher OOPE than financially independent men. In most states, it was observed that mean OOPE was high for men compared to women, which depicts clear gender differentials. The findings of this study are significant and provide new information on discrepancies between older men and women in health-care spending. Older men were found to have slightly higher health care costs relative to women in this nationally representative survey, after adjusting for confounding factors.