Study on Women’s Status, Health and Family Planning in India

Aims & Objectives: This study was a comprehensive, evidence-based resource for advocacy, with the central premise to determine the status of health among women across states and to make a comparison between different socio-economic strata. It also examined the awareness about family planning among women in the reproductive age group and the different methods followed across diverse socio-economic groups; the factors affecting the awareness and family planning practices among the women in the reproductive age group; and whether the family planning practices were affected by the status of women’s empowerment.

Methodology: A detailed secondary data-based analysis had been undertaken using all sources such as NFHS, NSS, Census, RG’s office, DLHS, AHS, SRS, NCRB, MIS of MHFW and MWCD, IHDS. The study was a retrospective analysis of women’s health and family planning in the country. The various topics discussed above included analysis of regional and socio-economic factors, women at different ages and marginalized groups. The report further analysed the trends and captured the changes over past few decades at an all India level by sectors (Total, Rural and Urban).

Findings: Some key observations of the study included the following:

• India has a better survival status for females after they have attained sixyears of age. Recent policy initiatives and gender-sensitization appeared tobe a pragmatic step resulting in better indicators in the most adverse outcome regions.
• Many states in India still accounted for higher proportion of girls gettingmarried off by the age of 18 years. This seemed to be the major challenge andrequired better synergies across sectors and actors as even in states likeWest Bengal with specific programmes and multi-department interventions;under-age marriage among girls continues to be rife.
• Several EAG states registered steady increase in female literacy during 20years between 1991 to 2011, but since they started with abominably low levels, they would continue to face the challenge to make even close to half of their womenfolk literate.
• India still has a number of states, where less than 30% of women/ girls areable to attend secondary education. The states with low secondary educational attainment among girls/women correspond to the higherproportion of females getting married under the legal age. As of 2015-16estimates, nearly 30-40% of the girls from these states were getting marriedbefore their 18thbirthday.