Gender Disparities in the Completeness of Death Registration in India

Arun Jose, Achutha Menon Center for Health Science Studies, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology
Biju Soman, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Science and Technology

The civil registration systems (CRS) play a crucial role in establishing legal rights, facilitating national planning, and meeting international obligations. Nevertheless, there are ongoing gender differences, especially among disadvantaged women, in the registration of vital events, which exacerbates existing inequities. In this study, we estimate the completeness of death registration by gender and for the total population in major Indian states from 2014 to 2020. The analysis also examines the total and direct effects of gender on death registration in the years 2015 and 2020, taking into account the role of asset ownership as a mediating variable. Death registration completeness was evaluated by comparing CRS deaths with expected deaths from Sample Registration Systems estimate. In India, the death registration improved from 70% in 2014 to 82.3% in 2020, though the gender gap widened from 10.1% to 16.4%. In 2015, men had an average death registration rate 8.62% higher than women across Indian states, a gap that persisted in 2020 at 8.34%. Asset ownership mediated 15% of this effect in 2015 but only 3.12% in 2020. The results indicate that despite improvements in death registration, the growing gender disparity necessitates targeted and multifaceted interventions.

Keywords: Civil Registration and Vital Statistics, Mortality and Longevity, Bayesian methods

See paper.