Household Headship, Filial Expectations and Mortality in Older Widows in India: Evidence from the Longitudinal Survey Data Analyses

Babul Hossain, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

This study investigates the relationship between household headship and mortality experiences for widowed women aged 45 years and above in India. The study used the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), a nationally representative longitudinal survey. The results indicate no excess mortality risk for widows compared to married women, where widows or their sons were household heads. On the other hand, when the widows in households headed by others (viz. brothers, sons-in-law, grandsons, and extended family members), widows experience heightened mortality risk than married women. Subsample analysis suggests that despite widow-heading households but expecting financial support from sons, they had higher mortality than widows who did not expect financial support from their sons. Further, the heterogeneity analysis by household economic status and place of residence holds the hypothesis that the household headship reduced the odds of mortality in widows if they did not have financial expectations from their sons. By adjusting for the endogeneity between household headship and economic status using an instrument variable regression model, the study confirms that older widows in households headed by children had double the mortality risk compared to the rest of widows.

Keywords: Families, Unions and Households, Older Adults and Intergenerational Relations, Longitudinal studies , Mortality and Longevity

See extended abstract.