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Exploring the Relationship between Household Structure and Utilisation of Maternal Health Care Services in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2022

Manas Ranjan Pradhan Open the ORCID record for Manas Ranjan Pradhan [Opens in a new window]  and
Sourav Mondal
Manas Ranjan Pradhan*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of Fertility and Social Demography, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, India
Sourav Mondal
Affiliation:
Research Scholar, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, India
*
*Corresponding author. Email: manasiips@gmail.com
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Abstract

The role of household structure, especially the mother-in-law (MIL) influencing daughter-in-law’s maternal health care (MHC) seeking behaviour, has been a continuing debate due to the former’s advantageous position in the household. This study assesses the association of household structure and particularly the presence of MIL with MHC utilisation in India using the National Family Health Survey-4 data (2015-16). The sample of women aged 15-49 years who have given birth during the last five years preceding the survey (n=184,641) was considered for analysis. The outcome variables were full-antenatal care, institutional delivery, and postnatal care. Binary logistic regression was used to check the adjusted effects of the household structure on MHC utilisation. The analyses were done with STATA (version 13) with a significance level of 5%. Adjusting the effects of socio-demographic and economic characteristics, women from non-nuclear households with MIL had higher odds of full-antenatal care (OR= 1.04, CI= 0.99-1.08) and institutional delivery (OR=1.05, CI=1.01- 1.10) than their counterparts from nuclear households. Women from non-nuclear households without MIL had lower chances of postnatal care (OR=0.98, CI=0.96-1.00) than those from nuclear households. The study unearths a very weak association between the presence of MIL in the household and MHC services utilisation of the daughter-in-law, a notable change from the earlier literature often portraying MIL as a barrier.

Keywords

Household StructureMaternal Health CareIndia
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , May 2023 , pp. 438 - 448
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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