Women left behind — Rajasthan health insurance scheme has a gender gap | ThePrint

CEGA Affiliated professor Pascaline Dupas and coauthor Radhika Jain’s Op-Ed in ThePrint reveals that just expanding geographical access and reducing cost of healthcare won’t reduce gender disparity based on in their examination of gender equity in the Bhamashah Swasthya Bima Yojana health insurance programme:

“Our finding that a large universal health coverage policy has not reduced gender disparities over four years of implementation goes against the general assumption that expanding geographical access and reducing the costs of healthcare will automatically reduce inequalities. Such gender-neutral policies may increase female levels of utilisation but closing gender gaps requires strategies that explicitly target barriers to female care-seeking and gender bias.”

Source: Women left behind — Rajasthan health insurance scheme has a gender gap: Study