Morbidity differential among emigrants’ and non-emigrants’ wives in Kerala, India

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the overall morbidity prevalence and their differentials among emigrants’ and non-emigrants’ wives in Kerala, India.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is based on the third round of The Kerala Migration Survey-2007 data. The third round of KMS was perhaps the first survey which has collected data on Indian emigration and morbidity scenario during 2007 at the household and individual level. Descriptive statistics, binary logistic regression models, and Oaxaca decomposition models were used to examine the disease differentials among emigrants’ and non-emigrants’ wives.

Findings

The paper shows that household size is negatively associated with chronic disease and incidence of morbidity is much lower among emigrants’ wives. The result also shows that among women, those who stay with a husband or whose husbands are elsewhere in India show a higher incidence of morbidity than those whose husbands are abroad, owing to the limited scope of activity as well as freedom in lifestyle and for taking independent decisions. Thus, it can be concluded that for women, the scope of activity and the freedom to live are important factors contributing to the level of morbidity. Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition results show that non-poor households and non-Muslim religion are in a disadvantageous position in terms of chronic morbidity.

Research limitations/implications

This paper is based on the cross-sectional nature of data; this is an obvious limitation on the effect of emigration on morbidity differentials among emigrants’ and non-emigrants’ wives.

Originality/value

There are few or rare studies conducted so far to investigate the effect of migration on the health of the spouses or families left behind.

Citation

Ali, I., Bhagat, R.B., Shankar, G. and Verma, R.K. (2017), "Morbidity differential among emigrants’ and non-emigrants’ wives in Kerala, India", International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 346-359. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMHSC-02-2015-0006