Social health insurance improves women’s healthcare use: Evidence from Indonesia

To improve the poor’s access to healthcare services, the Indonesian government introduced Askeskin, a subsidized social health insurance for the poor. We examine the effects of this social health insurance on women’s use of healthcare—maternal, preventive, and curative healthcare—services. Using propensity- score- and difference-in-differences matching strategies, we find the insurance increases the use of public facilities for maternal healthcare, discourages the use of midwives’ services, and increases the use of contraception; it does not seem to increase the use of preventive and curative care, however.