17SHODH, SAMIKSHA AUR MULYANKAN

International Indexed & Refereed Research Journal, ISSN 0974-2832,(Print) E- ISSN-2320-5474, December,2013, VOL-V * ISSUE- 59

Introduction-The status of women in India has been sub-

ject to many great changes over the past few millennia.From equal status with men in ancient times throughthe low points of the medieval period, to the promotionof equal rights by many reformers, the history of womenin India has been eventful. Men in Indian society arelike sun, they have a light of there own, (they ownresources, are mobile, have the freedom to takedecisions).Women on the other hand are like satellites,without any light of their own. They shine, if and onlyif, when the sun's light touches them. Even thoughsome sections of women have benefitted from womenempowerment, yet, the vast majority of them in ruralsegments have still remained untouched.

Women in rural areas are still considered in-ferior to men in every sphere of life. Much needs to bedone for the majority of the women rural areas. As such,for the purpose of testing this assumption and to seizethe knowledge of the status of women, a village surveyhad been undertaken during October 2012. Primarydata/information about socio economic conditions hadbeen collected using a Household Interview Schedulefrom all the 250 households of Lakhnour village. Find-ings are given in the present paper.Objectives-1. To examine the health, education and employment

status of female.2. To compare the status of females with males.

Research Paper -Geography

December , 2013

Status of Women in India:(A case Study of village Lakhnour, district S A S Nagar (Mohali) Punjab)

* Lavkesh kumar ** Nisha Malik

* Lecturer in Geography, GHS Lohinga Kalan (Mewat)** Research scholar, Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra

3. To investigate the status of women on the basis ofcastes.

Study Area-The area of study is Lakhnour village. This

village is located at the boarder of Haryana and Punjabstates and is also in the proximity of the well plannedcapital city Chandigarh, where according to the census2001 and 2011 large disparity exists in sex ratio. Thisvillage is one of the villages in Kharar block of S A SNagar, Punjab. It is 6.9 km for from its main town Khararand at a distance of 10 km from its main city Chandigarh.Landran at the distance of 8 km, Balongi 2.8 km, Sohana3.4 km are its surrounding villages. S A S Nagar is alsoat the distance of 7.1 km.Methodology- To ascertain the status of women as high, moder-ate and low first of all three major indicators viz. health,literacy and employment are considered along with fiveparameters of health indicator such as disease, disabil-ity, anganvari, birth rate and death rate. Each indicatoris analyzed on the basis of sex and social status. Toanalyze the final picture for assessing the status ofwomen in case of five parameters of health indicatorsthe criteria used is as follows:• More than 50% = high status• 50% = moderate status• Less than 50% = low statusSimilarly, for calculating the overall status of the women,

18 SHODH, SAMIKSHA AUR MULYANKAN

International Indexed & Refereed Research Journal, ISSN 0974-2832,(Print) E- ISSN-2320-5474, December,2013, VOL-V * ISSUE- 59the frequency of these three high, moderate and lowstatuses is counted.Result and Discussion-

"It is impossible to think about the welfare ofthe world unless the condition of women is improved.It is impossible for a bird to fly on only one wing"-Swami Vivekananda.But in village Lakhnour only 12.8 percent are femalesheaded as against 87.2 percent male headed house-holds.

The diagrams indicate that in both the upper and theintermediate class the percentage of female sufferingfrom disease is much higher than their male counterparts. While in the Artisan and lower class the situationis opposite, where this percentage is higher in malesthan female.Disability

Impotence/ disability of any kind is anotherimportant parameter of health indicator to ascertain thehealth status. Figure number 03 & 04 show the percent-age of disabled persons both sex as well as socialstatus wise. Figure no. 03 depicts that the percentageof disability in males is high which is 55% where as infemales it is 45%.

But, while considering this data both at sexand social status wise as pointed out in figure no. 04 thedisability in Upper class is only in males and in thelower caste the disability in females is 47.2%. It is onlyin the intermediate and Artisan caste that more femaleare suffering from disability of any kind.Figure: 03

S ex-Wis e Dis eas es

44.80

55.10 Male

F emale

AnganwariAnganwari is a government sponsored child and mothercare center in India. It caters to children in 0-6 agegroup. The word means courtyard shelter in Hindi.They were started by the Indian government in 1975 asa part of integrated child development services pro-gram to combat child hunger and malnutrition.See Figure : 05Healthiness in females is also calculated by the per-centage use of anganwari in the village. In Lakhnaur

Figure: 01

Figure: 02

HealthAccording to World Health Organization (WHO)-"Health is a state of complete physical, mental andsocial well being and not merely the absence of dis-eases or infirmity" To establish the health factor in thefemale of the village community, five main parameterssuch as disease, disability, anganvari, birth and deathhave been undertaken both sex and social status wise.These parameters help to determine healthiness of thewomen. Figure no 01 & 02 clearly represent the sex wisepercentage of disease and sex wise percentage of dis-ease on the basis of social status respectively.Diseases

Figure: 04

19SHODH, SAMIKSHA AUR MULYANKAN

International Indexed & Refereed Research Journal, ISSN 0974-2832,(Print) E- ISSN-2320-5474, December,2013, VOL-V * ISSUE- 59village facility of aganwari is availed more by malesthan females which is evident in figure no. 05calculating52% by males as against 48% by females.

When this percentage is calculated sex wise in socialstatus as depicted in figure no. 06, 100% females areavailing the facility of anganvari both in upper as wellas in Artisan caste. In intermediate caste this percent-age is shared equally by the males and females. It isonly in the lower caste that the female lag behind inavailing the facility of anganvariBirth RateFigure: 07

Figure no.08 refers to percetage of sexwise birth on thebasis of social status. It reflects that overall picturegoes in favour of males in all the fours castes.Death RateFigure: 09

Analysis of sex wise death depicts high percentage inmales than females as given in figure no. 09.Figure: 10

Figure : 05

Figure: 06

Last but not the least percentage of births and deathsare very significant parameters of health indicator. Fromfigure no. 07 it is evident that the percentage of birthlast there years is high in males which is 57% while infemales it is 47%.

Figure: 08

68%

32%

Male

F emale

S ex -Wis e Deaths

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Upper C as te IntermediateC as te

Artis anC as te

L ower C as te

S oc ia l S ta tus

Per

cen

tag

e

Male

F emale

S ex -Wis e Deaths on the B as is of S oc ial S tatus

Coming to percentage of sex wise death on the basis ofsocial status figure 10 points out much greater percent-age in females of the village during last three years inupper and artisan caste. While this percentage is quitelow in intermediate and in lower caste, pointing to-wards high status of female.Literacy

20 SHODH, SAMIKSHA AUR MULYANKAN

International Indexed & Refereed Research Journal, ISSN 0974-2832,(Print) E- ISSN-2320-5474, December,2013, VOL-V * ISSUE- 59Figure: 11 quite low ebb of employment at all the social levels.

Literacy rate is the second significant indicator foranalyzing the status of women. 64% males of the villageLakhnour are literate while only 36% females are literarteas represented in figure no. 11.Figure: 12

64%

36%

Male

F emale

S ex -Wis e L iterac y

At social status, it is only the upper caste where thefemale are more literate than the males. Where as all theother three castes, females are less literate than thirmale couter part as denoted in figure no. 12.EmploymentFigure: 13

Concluding RemarksAnalyzing three major indicators viz. health,

literacy and employment in the village on the basis ofsocial status, it is finally concluded that all the threeindicators with their conclusive parameters presentvery low status of women as is denoted in table no 1,2,3 and 4.Health condition is reflected in table no 1, here moder-ate status has been calculated in upper and artisancastes. Low status is figured in the intermediate andlower castes. Not a single caste confirms high status ofwomen. As such overall health position is found to below.

Table no 2 points out literacy rate of women.It manifests that high status of women is only in uppercaste. While in all other three castes, women status islow. As such, literacy wise women status is laggingbehind and is stated to be low.

Employment ratio is represented in table no 3.Here overall females are in low status in each and evrysection of castes.Finally, on the basis of data analyzed in all the threetables, the findings confirm that the status of womenin village Lakhnour is low. If the status of women is inlow condition in a village like Lakhnour which is inclose proximity to well planned modern city likeChandigarh, then what will be the best picture availablewith respect to the posion of women in other places ofIndia.At last, it is suggested that a concerted effort appearsto be essential to improve the status of women. Thisrequire a multipronged approach.

Employment is the third indicator for obtaining thestatus of women. This indicator reflects that 12.60% offemale are employed as aginst 87.30 % males as indi-cated in figure no. 13.Figure:14 Figure no.14 brings to light clearly that females are at

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International Indexed & Refereed Research Journal, ISSN 0974-2832,(Print) E- ISSN-2320-5474, December,2013, VOL-V * ISSUE- 59

Table 1Upper Caste Intermediate Caste Artisan Caste Lower CasteMale Female status Male Female status Male Female status Male Female status

Disease 18.1 81.8 Low 37.7 62.2 Low 57.1 42.8 High 52.1 47.8 High Disability 100 0 High 40 60 Low 42.8 57.1 Low 47.2 52.8 Low Anganwari 0 100 High 50 50 Moderate 0 100 High 64. 35.3 Low Birth 50 50 Moderate 58.8 41.2 Low 50 50 Moderate 58.8 41.2 Low Death 0 100 Low 81.2 18.7 High 33.3 66.6 Low 71.5 28.5 High

Moderate Low Moderate Low

Health status Low

Table 2Upper Caste Intermediate Caste Artisan Caste Lower Caste

Male Female status Male Female status Male Female status Male Female statusliteracy 45 55 High 52 48 Low 62 38 Low 69 41 Low

Literacy status Low

Employment Upper Caste Status Intermediate Caste Status Artisan Caste Status Lower Caste Status

Male(%)

Female(%)

Male (%) Female (%) Male(%)

Female(%)

Male(%)

Female(%)

Job 60 40 Low 94.7 5.2 Low 86.6 13.3 Low 75.5 24.4 Low

Business 87.5 12.5 Low 89.6 10.3 Low 84.2 15.7 Low 100 0 Low

Agriculture 0 0 Moderate 82.7 17.2 Low 0 0 Moderate 0 0 Moderate

Labour 87.5 12.5 High 100 0 High 100 0 High 86.6 13.3 High

Low Low Low Low

Employment Status Low

Table 3

Status of Women in the village

Health status Literacy status Employment Status

Low Low Low

Overall Low Status of Women

Table 4

1 Banerjee, N. Women Workers in the Unorganised sector. The Calcutta Experience. Hydrabad: Sangam Books, 1985.2 Census of India, Statistical Abstract of India, New Delhi, 2001.3 Census of India, Statistical Abstract of India, New Delhi,2011.4 Chandna R.C. Population. New Delhi: Kalyani Publishers, 2003, 197.5 Chandna, R.C. Geography of Population, Concepts, Determinants and Patterns. New Delhi: Kalyani Publishers, 2008, 575.6 Government of Haryana, Statistical Abstract Haryana 2005-06, 2007.7 World Bank, Labour force, Employment and labour Markets in the Course of Economic Development (Staff Working

Paper) Washington: World Bank, 1979, 336.8 World Bank report 2003a, p. 4.

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