Spatial and Social Inequalities in Human Development: India in the ...

The infant mortality rates (IMR), used as negative proxy indicators of health, for men andwomen and for rural and urban areas, reflect improvement in the situation in recent years(Table 6). The gender disparity works out as high although this has declined marginally during2005-11. Relatively faster decline in infant mortality rate for girls, however, must be balancedagainst the increasing termination of female fetuses. Rural mortality rate is about 60 per centhigher than the urban rate in 2005 and unfortunately, this has remained unchanged in 2011.This implies that the rural urban disparity has not declined as the gender disparity. In thecontext of interstate inequality, one notices high coefficient of variation for men and womenand for rural and urban areas. The values of these coefficients have, however, gone downmarginally over the years. One must nonetheless point out that the decline is basically due to afall in IMR in the north eastern states and the smaller states of Goa, Himachal Pradesh andUttarakhand. Restricting the analysis to the larger states, one would argue that there has beena marginal increase in interstate inequality in recent years, similar to what was noted in case ofeducational indicators. Educational indicators, however, do not show any strong correlationwith economic development as many of the developed states like Delhi, Punjab and Haryana,report low educational attainment along with backward states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh,Bihar and Jharkhand. The correlations of per capita SDP with IMR are, however, stronglynegative since the states with high per capita income like Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka,Punjab, Gujarat and West Bengal report low mortality rates while the less developed states likeOdisha, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Utter Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh record high IMR. Thecorrelation coefficients of per capita SDP with IMR were -0.45 and -0.42 for males and femalesrespectively, the two values becoming even stronger in 2011 going up to -0.72 and -0.64 TheIMR showing a strong negative correlation with per capita state income is understandable asthe poorer states tend to make low expenditure both by public agencies as also households.The poor educational and health outcomes in a less developed states should, therefore be amatter of concern since these are not able to allocate adequate funds to social sectors and thisdeficit are not getting compensated through allocations or transfers under the federal system.The states of Kerala and Himachal Pradesh are important exceptions as these are able to reportexcellent health outcomes at a low level of per capita SDP. Similarly, the high IMR particularlyfor girl children in the economically developed state of Haryana can be explained in terms ofsocial prejudices against the girl child. More importantly, the decline in IMR does not appear tobe high in the backward states that are the regions of concern, reflecting the priority of thepublic agencies. Understandably, the CV in medical facilities reflecting the interstate inequalitycan be seen as going up in recent times.Table 6: Annual estimates of infant mortality rate for men and women in rural and urbanareas of States and UTsRuralUrbanMaleFemale2005 2011 2005 2011 2005 2011 2005 2011India 64 48 40 29 56 43 61 46Andhra Pradesh 63 47 39 31 56 40 58 46Assam 71 58 39 34 66 55 69 5621