Equality of What? Evidence from India

This paper explores univariate health inequality in India using a representative sample of pre-school age children. I make comparisons, both spatially between states, and inter-temporally, to both illustrate the methods for measuring and decomposing health inequality, while providing some interesting empirical findings on health inequality. The results suggest that the changes in the distribution of height are less important than the changes in the mean values, when explaining the evolution of the nutrition poverty index over time in India. However, I also observe that the level of stunted growth would be reduced markedly among the various Indian states if the distribution of heights corresponded to the pattern that exists in Kerala, where health of children is relatively equally distributed. In addition, I compare the health inequality results to income inequality figures reported elsewhere, and find no correlation