Gender disparities in self-perceived health and subjective well-being among older adults in India: evidences from a large-scale survey

Due to unequal access to resources and social services there are enormous gender disparities in the self-perceived health and subjective well-being of the older adults in India. This study has assessed the gender disparities in self-perceived health and subjective well-being and examined the individual and household determinants of health and wellbeing. Data from WHO sponsored Study on Global AGEing and adult health survey wave-I, 2007–2008 (n = 3621) were used. We employed principle component analysis and multivariate logistic regression to examine the factors affecting the differences in self-perceived health and subjective well-being. Older women have poorer self-perceived health and subjective well-being as compared to their male counterparts in all three categories of good, moderate and poor. In good category, men have reported higher level (38.86%) of subjective wellbeing as compared to women (28.26%). In contrast a higher proportion (41.13%) of women has reported poor wellbeing than men (33.63%). The multinomial regression also shows that men enjoyed higher level of subjective wellbeing [OR (95% CI) 0.327 (0.183–0.585)] than women [OR (95% CI) 0.088 (0.005–1.463)]. There is clear distinction in self-perceived health and subjective well-being between older men and women due to lifelong discriminatory socio-economic factors leading to such disparities. In this context, strong gender-neutral policies and interventions are essential to minimize the existing gender disparities.