Utilization and Barriers of Reproductive Healthcare Services among Economic Stratum: An Evidence from India

This paper examines inequality in utilization of reproductive health care services among economic stratum using data from DLHS-3. It is also attempts to identify the variation in barriers of service utilization by economic status and its effect. Gini concentration index has been used to capture the inequality and multivariate analysis has been carried out to find out the effect of economic status on main reason for non-utilization. Rich-poor disparity is more pronounced among rural, illiterate and Muslim women. Rural-urban disparity reduces with improved economic status, especially for delivery care utilization. Disparity between non-literate and highly literate becomes less in the richer group for utilizing safe delivery, while similar picture is found for Hindu-Muslim disparity in full ANC utilization. ‘Not necessary’ is the main reason for non-utilization of ANC and delivery care. Women from poorest stratum are 2 times more likely to state ‘not necessary’ for non-utilization compared to richest counterpart.