Number Theory: Understanding India’s women empowerment, or the lack of it
The NFHS data show that 88.7% of married women (aged 15-49 years) had their say (alone or jointly with husbands) in at least one of the decisions on health care for self, major household purchases, and visits to her family and relatives.
Traditionally, Indian society has been known to impose various kinds of restrictions upon women and it is widely believed that patriarchal practices are engrained. How empowered are Indian women in various aspects of life in India today? Have things improved, as far as the agency of women is concerned?
An HT analysis of National Family and Health Survey (NFHS) data shows that the answer to this question is not as straightforward as both extremes would like to believe. Here are five charts which explain why.
Women’s agency in decision making within a household is increasing, but it is still controlled
Do women have a say in decisions within the household? The NFHS sought responses of married women (aged 15-49 years) on the autonomy they enjoy in making three kinds of decisions: health care for self, major household purchases, and visits to her family and relatives. NFHS-5 data show that 88.7% of women had their say (alone or jointly with husbands) in at least one of the decisions, while 71% had a say (alone or jointly with her husband) in each of these decisions. On both these counts, the situation has improved from NFHS-4. To be sure, the autonomy available to women is significantly lower when it comes to financial decisions. The share of employed women who can decide (alone or jointly with husbands) on how to use their own financial income was 67% in NFHS-5. As is to be expected, a much smaller share of women can take such decisions on their own.
What increases decision making power of women the most?
Latest NFHS data show that both number of living children and wealth status influence the decision-making power of women in households. While 61.9% of women with no children had a say on all these decisions, this figure rose to 74.7% for women with more than five children. In terms of class, 74.1% of women who had a say on all these three decisions belong to the richest or fifth quintile (top 20%), this figure drops to 69.2% till the penultimate (second) quintile.
And they continue to face gender discrimination in the labour market
Indian women have to fight it out in the labour market with the proverbial situation of one hand tied behind their backs. This is on account of a disproportionate burden of household and domestic care work, as was explained in a 2020 HT analysis which looked at data from the Time Use Survey.
This is not the only handicap women face in the job market. NFHS data shows that the share of women who worked on in-kind wages was twice that of men; four times more women than men reported to being not paid at all.
Free mobility still eludes more than half of Indian women
NFHS allows us to assess the freedom of women to access three places (the market, health facilities, and places outside the village or community) alone. The fifth round of NFHS shows that 42.3% of women said they could go to all the three places alone. This has marginally increased from 40.5% in NFHS-4. To be sure, freedom of mobility is significantly higher in urban areas than rural areas.
Even after controlling for the rural-urban split, the data shows that Muslim women fare the worst when it comes of free mobility. Women belonging to Sikh and Jain community had the highest share of mobility at 59.3% and 54.1% respectively, while Muslim women had the lowest share at 33.8% in NFHS-5.
In some cases, empowerment is just a function of material well-being and old taboos are giving way
On questions such as menstrual health, ingrained taboos are believed to have institutionalised discrimination against women. However, NFHS shows that their pervasive effects are finally beginning to weaken. For example, the fifth round of the NFHS added a new question to the survey, where women were asked if they took bath during their menstruation in the same washroom as their household members or not. There is an age-old practice where menstruating women are considered unholy. About 92% of menstruating women reported to have taken bath in the same washroom as their family members. In fact, NFHS data clearly shows that menstrual hygiene – NFHS records it as use of locally prepared napkins, sanitary napkins, tampons and menstrual cups – has a strong positive correlation with income and educational levels. This underlines the importance of subsidising menstrual health and pro-actively increasing awareness about it.
But on some questions, the subconscious of patriarchy dominates
NFHS asks women’s attitudes on the physical violence incurred on them by their husbands for seven different reasons. The fifth round of NFHS shows that 45.4% of women aged 15-49 say that a husband is justified beating his wife for at least one of these reasons. While this has decreased from 51.6% in the fourth round of NFHS, the number is still very high and reflects what can be described as normalisation of domestic violence. Among these various reasons, 31.7% of women think it is okay for husbands to beat wives if they show disrespect towards their in-laws. 27.6% of women think it is okay for husbands to do so if the women neglect taking care of the house or children. These perceptions do not have a clear trend with rise in income. While 47.5% of poorest women think such violence is justified, 46.6% of richer women and 34.9% of the richest women think so too.
What is even more alarming in the latest NFHS survey is the fact that the share of men who agree that wife-beating is justified has increased to 44% from 40.8% in NFHS-4. Among other reasons, 9.8% of men in NFHS-5 think it is okay to beat wives if they refuse sex.
