Association between Social Sector Expenditure and Health Status: A Study Based on NFHS-4 (2015-16) & NFHS-5 (2019-20)

Abstract

The social sector outlay in India has witnessed a rising trend over the last couple of decades with the prime focus on bringing about improvements in the quality of life of people. The present work attempts to analyse the present state of social sector expenditure (SSE) across the states in India and examine its impact on health status. To obtain a measure of health status, a health deprivation score (SHDS) that comprised of adult health deprivation and child health deprivation for each state has been computed. A pooled regression model has been employed to consider the contribution of social sector expenditure on the health status. The result of the analysis indicated that the share of SSE of BIMARU states was 26 per cent in 2005-06, which increased to 29.5 per cent in 2019-20. Higher-income states and states with higher social spending were found to have significant favourable impact on SHDS.