Social Affiliation and the Demand for Health Services: Caste and Child Health in South India

The roles of social affiliation, measured by caste, in shaping investments in child health are assessed. The special setting that is chosen for the analysis – tea estates in the South Indian High Range – allows controlling non-parametrically for differences in income, access to health services, and patterns of morbidity across low caste and high caste households. In this controlled setting, low caste households spend more on their children’s health than high caste households, reversing the pattern that we would expect to find elsewhere in India. Moreover, health expenditures do not vary by gender within either caste group, in contrast once again with the male preference documented throughout the country. A simple (caste) network-based model of household resource allocation is proposed to explain these striking results. [BREAD Working Paper No. 099].