Food Insecurity Among Older Adults in India: A Study of Disparities Across the Inter-sectional Axes of Caste, Poverty, and Gender

In the last decade, lack of consumption data has made it difficult to study the question of “socio-economic and gender equity in food security”. A limited existing research on food security in older people among India has focused on consequences rather than understanding factors contributing to it through innovative theoretical frameworks. This study examines the association between multi-dimensional marginalization of caste, poverty and gender on food insecurity among older adults in India using intersectionality framework. Intersectionality theory posits that multiple layers of marginalization experienced by individuals cannot be understood by treating the explanators distinctly as one master factor; rather, they should be studied in intersecting terms, not a sum of the parts. Using data from the nationally representative Longitudinal Ageing Study in India Wave-1 (2017–18) and robust econometric strategy, we find large differences in the levels of food insecurity status across the intersectional axes of caste, poverty and gender. The results indicate that systematic discrimination and multi-layer structural deprivation persist among the poor and non-poor schedule caste and schedule tribe males and females, with a smaller independent effect of gender within the caste and economic groups. Our findings are robust to multiple sub-samples. In conclusion, we advance that intersectionality framework is an innovative approach to identify most vulnerable people with food insecurity “within” and “across” the broad social categories.