Public health issues in India and UK: Child Mortality and Survival Expectations

This thesis consists of three self-contained research articles that empirically explore survival expectations of older populations and mortality amongst children. Chapter 1 examines methodological considerations in eliciting survival probabilities in India and tests their associations with known socioeconomic characteristics. Chapter 2 investigates the effect of a survey induced negative health information shock on survival expectations of older Britons. Chapter 3 estimates the causal effect of domestic violence on child mortality in India. The analysis uses the pilot study of the Longitudinal Ageing Study of India (LASI) in Chapter 1, the English Longitudinal Ageing Study (ELSA) in Chapter 2 and the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) in Chapter 3. The general timeframe of the analysis is 1991 to 2010. The findings in Chapter 1 suggests that it is feasible to elicit subjective survival expectations in a developing country context and that these expectations correlate in meaningful ways with previously known social and economic predictors. Chapter 2 finds that individuals update subjective survival expectations in response to new information in meaningful ways and in Chapter 3 I find evidence that suggest a causal and significantly positive relationship between domestic violence and child mortality.