Factors Affecting Infant Mortality Rate in India: An Analysis of Indian States

摘要

While there are enough efforts by the governments to reduce the infant mortality rate in developing countries, the results are not as desired. India is no exception to the case. Identifying the factors that affect the infant mortality rates would help in better targeting of the programs leading to enhanced efficiency of such programs. Earlier studies have shown the influence of socio economic factors on infant mortality rates at a global level and found that variables like fertility rate, national income, women in labour force, expenditure on health care and female literacy rates influence the infant mortality rates. The current study using the data from Indiastat.com from all states and Union Territories of India for the years 2001 and 2011 tries to establish the relationship between infant mortality rate and some of the above mentioned factors along with a few healthcare infrastructure related variables. Using a regression analysis method we not only identify the influence of the variables on infant mortality, we went a step further in identifying the performance of states and union territories in reducing IMR. The performance was measured using 'technical efficiency' analysis. We then compared the performance and growth rate of IMR to classify the states as good performers and laggards. Our results suggest that most of the major states are on track on their performance on IMR. However, a few small states and union territories like Andaman and Nicobar Island, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh as well as Jammu & Kashmir need special attention and targeting to reduce IMR.