Human Development Index

This article is a sector-level analysis and evaluation of schemes for women and child development in India. It also makes recommendations towards the end wherein it is said that a synergy between various ministries working for child and women protection is needed for their wholesome development and empowerment.

This article proposes to measure functioning-based well-being, as proposed by Amartya Sen and others, for 28 states in India based on National Family Health Survey 3 (2005-06) data. Significant differences between states were found in terms of well-being and wealth indices. Overall, women were found to be far behind men in terms of well-being. The well-being of women was found to decline with age and when they were in larger families, unlike men. While upper-caste women were not found to be doing significantly better than Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe women, upper-caste men were better off. And the women in the northern mountainous regions were found to be doing better than women in the Indo-Gangetic plains. However, the well-being of both men and women was found to be significantly related to the wealth they possessed.

Women's work plays a significant role in reducing gender inequality and is also seen to affect levels of fertility and child mortality. However, the relationship between female work participation status and autonomy and demographic indicators has not been clearly established. This paper attempts to bring out the conditions of women's work, status and their relationship with child mortality and fertility in a south Indian village. The aim is to explore the comprehensiveness of the term 'conditions of women's work' and how it reflects the entire milieu of a woman's situation.

We discuss the relationship of our initial paper [Singh, Bhandari, Chen and Khare 2003] to the work of Deaton and Dreze (2002).