Empowerment, Gender Attitudes, and Reproductive Decisions among Married Women, Then and Now

Abstract

The need to redress gender inequalities has long been recognized in India. As noted in Chapter 1, policies to reduce discrimination against women go back more than half a century, and positive discrimination in favor of females was endorsed by India’s Constitution in 1950. Nonetheless, the reduction of long-standing gender disparities within a society is a slow and gradual process, and it is therefore useful to monitor change through a longitudinal lens. To what extent have women in rural areas benefited from the increasing wealth generated in India in recent years, and to what extent has progress in women’s status, and a corresponding reduction in son preference, accompanied this growing prosperity? The present and subsequent chapters address this question from different perspectives. This chapter focuses on cohorts of married Gove women and how much change has occurred in traditional attitudes, social and economic empowerment, fertility, infant mortality, and family planning. It also investigates the degree to which women’s empowerment has affected family size, fertility choices, infant deaths, contraceptive use, and the preference for sons. The use of a repeat survey with virtually identical instruments and a common study approach, employed by the same researcher, makes it possible to answer these questions with reasonable confidence.

Deepa¹ aged 23, has a B.A. degree. She wanted to study further and get a job but she was pressured into getting married instead. She was hoping to get an educated husband working in a service occupation but her husband is a farmer. However, the family is well off and has about 16 acres of land. “My husband and in-laws have a very nice nature,” she says. “In fact, my father-in-law would have let me study further but, because my husband is a farmer, I don’t think it would be fair.” Although her in-laws are good, they make all the decisions. She had one girl, and everyone was happy, but there is still a lot of pressure on her to have a son. “I can’t say what will happen,” she confides. “I would opt for a sterilization after the next child, no matter which sex, but I don’t make any decisions.”

(Gove village, Field notes, 2008)