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Widowhood and Mortality in India: Household Headship and Filial Expectations and Their Association with Mortality Among Older Widows

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Babul Hossain at LIH Luxembourg Institute of Health
Babul Hossain
Srinivas Goli at International Institute for Population Sciences
Srinivas Goli
K. S. James at Institute for Social and Economic Change
K. S. James
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Abstract and Figures

This study investigates the relationship between ‘household headship and filial expectations’ and ‘risk of mortality’ for widowed women aged 45 years and above in India. The study used the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), a nationally representative longitudinal survey. The results indicate no excess mortality risk for widows compared to married women, where widows or their sons were household heads. On the other hand, when the widows were in households headed by others (viz. brothers, sons-in-law, grandsons, and extended family members), widows had a heightened mortality risk compared to married women. Further, the analysis suggests that despite heading households if widows expected financial support from their sons, they had higher mortality than widows who did not expect financial support from their sons. The main results hold in multiple robustness checks. First, even after adjusting for the endogeneity between household headship and economic status using the instrument variable (IV) regression model, the results indicate that older widows in households headed by themselves had almost a 30% increased mortality risk compared to the rest of the widows. Second, the heterogeneity analysis suggests that household headship was linked with increased odds of mortality in widows if they were heading the household and did have financial expectations from their sons, particularly if they belonged to poor households and living in rural India. Given that the share of widows in the total older population is expected to rise considerably in the future, the findings assume importance for both policy and practice.
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Family and Economic Issues
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-024-09995-3
ORIGINAL PAPER
Widowhood andMortality inIndia: Household Headship andFilial
Expectations andTheir Association withMortality Among Older
Widows
BabulHossain1· SrinivasGoli2 · K.S.James3
Accepted: 23 September 2024
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024
Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between ‘household headship and filial expectations’ and ‘risk ofmortality’ for wid-
owed women aged 45years and above in India. The study used the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), a nationally
representative longitudinal survey. The results indicate no excess mortality risk for widows compared to married women,
where widows or their sons were household heads. On the other hand, when the widows werein households headed by others
(viz. brothers, sons-in-law, grandsons, and extended family members), widows hada heightened mortality risk compared to
married women. Further, the analysis suggests that despite heading households if widows expected financial support from
their sons, they had higher mortality than widows who did not expect financial support from their sons. The main results
hold in multiple robustness checks. First, even after adjusting for the endogeneity between household headship and economic
status using the instrument variable (IV) regression model,the results indicate that older widows in households headed
by themselves had almosta 30% increased mortality risk compared to the rest of the widows. Second, the heterogeneity
analysis suggests that household headship was linked with increased odds of mortality in widows if they were heading the
household and did have financial expectations from their sons, particularly if they belonged to poor households and living
in rural India. Given that the share of widows in the total older population is expected to rise considerably in the future, the
findings assume importance for both policy and practice.
Keywords Widowhood· Older widows· Mortality· Family· Filial expectation· India
Introduction
Globally and in India, a persisting gender difference in
adult mortality rates and improved survival chances among
women has led to a “feminization of widowhood” (David-
son etal., 2011; Streeter, 2020). ‘Gender role theory’
emphasizes the importance of women’s status within the
family for their socioeconomic and health outcomes (Ger-
ber & Balkin, 1977; Stroebe etal., 1993). As of the last
Census inIndia (2011), 28% (36 million) and 48% (25
million) of the 45 + and 60 + years populationof women
in India were widows, disproportionally higher than their
male counterparts (8% and 15%), making widowhood
the most prevalent civil status among olderwomen (GoI,
2011). Thus, the overall health status of women, particu-
larly atlaterages in India is often equated with the health
of widowed women. Recent studies have alsoexplored
various aspects of physical and mental health of wid-
owed women from India (Agrawal & Keshri, 2014; Desai
* Srinivas Goli
srinivasgoli@iipsindia.ac.in
Babul Hossain
bhossain399@gmail.com
K. S. James
jkuriath@tulane.edu
1 Luxembourg Institute ofHealth (LIH), Strassen,
Luxembourg
2 Department ofFertility andSocial Demography,
International Institute forPopulation Sciences (IIPS),
Mumbai, India
3 Newcomb Institute, Tulane University, NewOrleans,
LA70118, USA
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