Explaining the Paradox in Gender Differential in Health in India

It is presumed that higher rate of morbidity would cause greater chances of mortality. However, the paradox is that females in India recently started experiencing lower rate of mortality with higher rate of morbidity as compared to males. This present paper suggests that gender differential in diseases pattern, severity in illness and greater risk behaviour among males play an important role in explaining the observed paradox. Indian females experience higher level of morbidity with regard to more acute or less life threatening diseases. On the other hand, males experience lower disease burden with regard to more life threatening diseases. The experiencing of more life threatening diseases or higher mortality rate among males across adult age groups is probably the result of males’ greater risk behaviour in terms of smoking, chewing pan masala and drinking alcohol. Therefore, this study expects that policy makers pay serious attention towards males’ health, particularly for the latter age groups. Although, females continue to be are still discriminated against, particularly in the early age groups, males deserve some attention because of their greater risk behaviour besides their facing life threatening diseases.