The Neglected Middle-Class and Social Justice in Health
Abstract:
With the rise of income inequality, the matter of social justice has also gained the momentum in past few decades. Social justice ensures equal distribution and access to public resources among individuals. However, socioeconomic inequality along with the biased government policy has raised a serious concern over the ethos of social justice in access to public resources including healthcare. The paper analyses the issue of social justice in health in India and one of the poorest states – Bihar. India is a democratic country with a strong democratic structure and constitutional provisions, but still, there is a high socioeconomic inequality. Therefore, it is interesting to study social justice in healthcare access in India. National Sample Survey (NSS) data on health – 71st and 75th rounds are used for the study. Social justice in health is analysed by focusing the healthcare access to the middle-income class. The result shows that inequality in healthcare access across income-class in prevailed in both India and Bihar, but the issue of social justice in health is a serious concern in Bihar only. Biased healthcare policy and inadequate public health protection schemes are some of the major reasons for the poor social justice in healthcare access in Bihar.
