Revisiting the Role of Gender in Health Taxonomy: Evidence from the Elderly in India

Abstract

Considering the unprecedented population aging problem and health-related difficulties in India, the study attempts to explore the health-related discrepancies among male and female elderly, with the help of a composite health indicator. The composite health indicator is formulated using the underlying characteristics of different health dimensions and expressed by a single health index as the representative of the overall health status of the elderly. Findings suggest that individual characteristics like, education and marital status have the greater exploratory power of gender health difference than the household characteristics. Socioeconomic variables like education levels, social groups, religious groups and geographic region influence almost similarly in constructing overall health of elderly across gender, however, almost after a decade the health difficulties has accelerated among the higher income classes both for men and women elderly.