Vol. 3, Issue 1, Part A (2021)

Abstract: Gender plays an important role in shaping all aspects of health and well-being. India is making progress in every field from economic spheres to human development, I spite of such progress even today there are various fields where gender discrimination can be observed. To address this gap we have made an attempt to measure the gender disparity in healthcare expenditure across states in India to understand where disparity exists and to characterise their nature. This paper also examines the difference in the male-female healthcare expenditure in rural and urban parts of the country. We have used NSSO 71st round data on healthcare expenditure and Sopher’s disparity index has been used to measure the value of disparity. Gender discrimination observed in healthcare expenditure varied among all the states of India and there is significant difference between the gender disparity existing in rural and urban areas.