Towards Equality: Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India

FOCUS

This report was composed by the Committee on the Status of Women in India constituting Phulrenu Guha, Maniben Kara, Savitri Shyam, Neera Dogra, Vikram Mahajan, Leela Dube, Sakina A. Hasan, Urmila Haksar, Lotika Sarkar and Vina Mazumdar. It was presented to Professor S. Nurul Hasa, Minister for Education and Social Welfare, Government of India on December 31, 1974.

The Constitution of India pledged improvement in the status of women. In order to review the country’s achievements towards this, the Indian government constituted the Committee on the Status of Women in India on September 22, 1971. Its primary terms of reference were to examine the constitutional, legal and administrative provisions that impact women’s social status especially in rural areas. It was also tasked with reviewing the progress in women's education and determining problems of working women including discrimination in employment and wages. The committee was also asked to study the implications of population policies and family planning programmes on status of women in India. Lastly, it was asked to suggest measures that could enable women to “play their full and proper role in building up the nation.”

The committee toured all states and most union territories of the country, surveying about 500 women in each state to assess changes in women’s participation in decision making within the family, share of work within and outside the family, attitudes towards education, employment, marriage, purdah and political participation among others things. It also talked to representatives from women’s organisations, individual experts and officials in various fields to gather information for this report.

The 496-page report contains nine chapters: Approach to the study of status of women in India (Chapter I); Demographic perspective (Chapter II); Socio-cultural setting of women’s status (Chapter III); Women and the law (Chapter IV); Roles, rights and opportunities for economic participation (Chapter V); Educational Development (Chapter VI); Political Status (Chapter VII); Policies and programs for women’s welfare and development (Chapter VIII); and The role and influence of the mass media on the status of women. (Chapter IX).

    FACTOIDS

  1. India’s female population was 264 million in 1971, a 126 percent increase over the 117 million in 1901. India’s male population increased by 130 percent over the same period. The higher growth in male population resulted in the decline of sex ratio from 972 to 930 women per 1,000 men over the same period. The report also noted that across almost all age groups in 1971, the sex ratio in rural areas was higher than that in urban areas. 

  2. Over the 5 decades from 1921 to 1971, male life expectancy in India increased from 26.9 years to 47.1 years while female life expectancy increased from 26.6 years to 45.6 years. It is notable that in every decade life expectancy of women was lower than that of men.

  3. The report recorded male literacy rate in 1971 to be 39.5 per cent whereas the female literacy rate was 18.7 per cent. Female literacy rate in urban areas averaged at 42.3 per cent and just 13.2 per cent in rural areas. A district level analysis showed that in 83 of the 352 districts in the country, female literacy rate in rural areas did not cross five per cent.

  4. In 1971, across both urban and rural areas, 80 per cent of women worked as cultivators and agricultural labourers. Around 87 per cent of rural women worked in these areas compared to around 22 per cent of urban women. Urban women were more likely to work in the service sector, manufacturing and processing, and trade. Additionally, 51  per cent of non-working women said they were engaged in household duties.

  5. Between 1911 and 1971 in India (excluding Jammu and Kashmir), the percentage of women workers in agriculture increased from 73.9 to 80 percent. However, the overall number of women workers in the country fell to almost half of the 1911 numbers; they had made up 34.44 per cent of the total labour in 1911 but accounted for only 17.35 per cent of total labour in 1971.

  6. Data from the Ministry of Education showed that in 1970-71, boys recorded greater enrolment in primary school compared to girls – 109.8 per cent (including repeaters) and 68.6 per cent respectively. Middle school enrolments (Classes 5-7) were even lower at 66.7 per cent (boys) and 33 per cent (girls).

  7. However, these numbers showed that enrolment had steadily increased since independence. In 1950-51, primary school enrolment had been 55 per cent among boys and 20 per cent among girls. Middle school figures had been even lower at 20.8 per cent and 4.6 per cent among boys and girls respectively.

  8. As per a statement submitted to the World Population Conference in 1974, India had 21.9 lakh degree holders in 1971, of which 17.82 lakh were men and 4.09 lakh women.

  9. Over the seven decades from 1901 to 1971, the total literate male literacy rate grew from 9.83 to 39.5 per cent. The female literacy rate also grew from 0.69 to 18.44 per cent.


    Focus and Factoids by Abizar Shaikh.


    PARI Library's health archive project is part of an initiative supported by the Azim Premji University to develop a free-access repository of health-related reports relevant to rural India.

AUTHOR

Department of Social Welfare, Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi

COPYRIGHT

Department of Social Welfare, Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi

PUBLICATION DATE

31 Dec, 1974

TAGS

#inequality #women #gender

SHARE