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Gender contexts, dowry and women’s health in India: a national multilevel longitudinal analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2020

Samuel Stroope Open the ORCID record for Samuel Stroope [Opens in a new window] ,
Rhiannon A. Kroeger  and
Jiabin Fan
Samuel Stroope*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA
Rhiannon A. Kroeger
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA
Jiabin Fan
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: sstroope@lsu.edu
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Abstract

Gender-biased contexts may impact women’s lives across a variety of domains. This study examined whether changes in district prevalence of a salient gendered practice – dowry – are associated with changes in poor health for women in India. Two waves of national multilevel panel data were used to assess the relationship between changes in district-level dowry prevalence and changes in self-rated health for 23,785 ever-married women aged 15–50 years. Increased dowry prevalence was found to be associated with increased poor self-rated health for women. This relationship remained when controlling for potentially confounding factors including household socioeconomic status, caste, infrastructure, mobility and state fixed-effects.

Keywords

HealthIndiaWomen
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , July 2021 , pp. 508 - 521
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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