Segmentation of Clients in India on the Basis of Reproductive Health Welfare Index

Sandip Anand, Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB)
R. K. Sinha, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

This research aims to measure the level of connect between providers of reproductive health services and clients on quality of care parameters and to identify segments of clients on the basis of their perceptions on quality of care parameters with respect to public and private service providers in the reproductive health sector. The research included analysis of data collected by Indian Institute for Population Studies and Johns Hopkins University as a follow-up study to the 1998-1999 National Family Health Survey. The analysis for this study is based upon data collected for 6,303 women. To establish the level of connect between providers and clients, a reproductive health welfare index was constructed based on the perceptual associations on quality of care parameters. To arrive at the segments of clients, cluster analysis was done. Thereafter discriminant analysis was performed to establish the differences among clusters. Four segments emerged out of these analyses which were named as beneficiary, adjusted, neglected and marginalized.