Does affordable Internet promote maternal and child healthcare access? Evidence from a post-telecommunication market disruption period in India

Abstract

Indian telecommunication market witnessed a distortion in 2016 due to a late-entrant firm's disruptive market entry with deep-discounted pricing; however, Internet penetration marked a considerable increase. Using nationally representative cross-sectional data from the post-market disruption period and an instrumental variable strategy for identification, we estimate the impact of the Internet on the uptake of maternal and child healthcare services. We find that the Internet improves the uptake of antenatal care, institutional delivery, postnatal care, and modern contraceptive use. A series of robustness checks confirm consistent and similar findings. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the increased affordability of the Internet had a more profound impact among socioeconomically disadvantaged cohorts. Our findings imply that universal Internet penetration can enhance uptake of healthcare in low- and middle-income countries.