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Impact of India's Conditional Cash Transfer Program on Childhood Immunization Rates

Ruchi Jain, National Council of Applied Economic Research, India
Santanu Pramanik, National Council of Applied Economic Research, India
Sonalde B. Desai, University of Maryland

Childhood immunisation is not the main target of safe motherhood intervention programs but directly or indirectly it has effects on its outcome. Our study, is therefore an attempt to evaluate the impact of JSY on childhood immunisation rates in the late post-NRHM period. Data for the present paper has been drawn from the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) Wave 2 conducted in 2011-12. IHDS is a nationally representative sample which provides a comprehensive description of changes in childhood immunisation rates over an extended period of seven years after the initiation of the JSY program. The analytical sample of the kids aged 12-60 months was 7950. In order to investigate the effect of maternal receipt of financial assistance from JSY on childhood immunization rates, we used a binary logistic regression, considering full immunisation as the outcome variable which is binary in nature. The paper also propose to conduct a propensity-score matching (PSM) with logistic regression to control for potentially confounding differences between the JSY and non-JSY groups. Preliminary findings indicates that India’s conditional cash transfer program has led to an improvement in child health indicators, in particular childhood immunisation outcomes. Receipt of cash assistance for delivery resulted in increased immunization rates.

Keywords: Children and youth, Health and morbidity, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session 176. Demographic and Socioeconomic Aspects of Health Across Many Geographies