8. Summary and Conclusions

The previous chapters presented and discussed the results of the author’s research, using unit record data from secondary sources, to quantify various aspects of health outcomes in India. Chapter 2 examined both toilet possession and personal hygiene in India. It showed that the strongest influences on households in India having a toilet were their standard of living, the highest educational level of adults in the households, and whether or not they possessed ancillary amenities like a separate kitchen for cooking, a pucca roof and floor, and water supply within the dwelling or its compound. However, in so doing, it also showed that whether households had toilets depended not just on household-specific factors but also on the social environment within which the households were located. More specifically, ceteris paribus households in more developed villages would be more likely to have a toilet than those in less developed villages.