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How women marry in India

A significant share of women in the country get married without even the most basic forms of communication with their to-be-spouses before their wedding day

Indian women may be shedding their clichéd demure image but when it comes to matters of choosing life partners they still opt for the traditional conventional ways. According to the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) 2011-12 a significant share of women in the country continue to get married without even the most basic forms of communication with their to-be-spouses before their wedding day.

Consider this: only half of the women in the age group of 15-32 years who were married as of 2011-12 had interacted with their spouses in person or through phone or email or had even seen a picture reveals the survey.

The numbers were even worse in the case of women of the older generation. In some categories only about one in six women have had some form of interaction with their to-be-spouses before wedding.

Expectedly a higher share of urban women has interacted with their to-be husbands. In rural India less than half of the married women had any form of communication with their partners.

According to Ravinder Kaur professor of sociology at IIT Delhi this may be because the idea of dating before marriage is still not accepted especially in smaller towns and rural areas and arranged marriage continues to be more prevalent.

“Often it may be that people are hesitant to admit that the couple had a love marriage and so they instead answer that they had no communication prior to the marriage. It becomes a question of the family’s honour… but now things are changing especially when the marriage is between two communities of the same class and stature” Kaur said.

As seen from the chart a higher share of the younger generation is now breaking this trend.

Higher age of marriage

That there is more communication before marriage now could be also owing to women now getting married at an older age. As per United Nations statistics the mean age of marriage in India as of 2011 was approximately 21 years. This is higher than the mean age of 19.3 years in 1991.

IHDS data shows that while an increasing proportion of women are now delaying marriage the mean age of marriage for women in India continues to remain low.

As of 2011-12 almost 41% of the married women in the age group of 15-32 years i.e the generation born after 1980 were married between 16 and 18 years of age. Over 24% of women in this age group were married between 19 and 21 years of age and only 11.5% were married between 22 and 25 years.

A research paper by UNICEF in 2011 titled ‘Delaying Marriage for Girls in India: A Formative Research to Design Interventions for Changing Norms’ conducted in Rajasthan revealed that fathers play a critical role in altering child marriage practices. The survey revealed that poverty was the biggest reason among fathers for pushing for early marriage of girls. Other reasons included social pressure/ chastity sibling marriage and school dropout or lack of inclination towards education.

Changing attitudes

The good news is that there is a visible change in the attitude towards daughters in the society. For instance 44.75% of women in urban areas who have been married at least once were open to receiving financial support from their daughter in old age up from 32.8% in 2004-05.

More women were also willing to live with their daughters in their old age a contradiction to the age-old tradition in India that parents should only live with their sons and not with their married daughters. The percentage of women willing to live with their daughters at later stages in life showed a 10 percentage point increase between 2004-05 and 2011-12.

Rural India proved to be slightly more conservative in this regard although a similar change in attitude was visible in rural areas too.

Reassuringly the younger generation of married women were more open to relying on their daughters in their old age. As per Kaur one reason for this could be that more women are now educated and are earning. “But of course it won’t be uniform across regions. Maharashtra and other southern states would have more such women while in states such as Bihar UP and Haryana such a trend may not be as visible.

This story shows how women are slowly gaining more freedom in issues like choosing their partners or breaking erstwhile taboos of supporting their parents after marriage. Tomorrow we use data to show how they still have fewer rights than men in terms of choosing to marry or remarry in India.

Tackling poverty in India: Jobs, not transfers, the big poverty-buster

The significant shift from farm work to non-farm sources of income accelerated the decline in poverty in India. Non-farm jobs pay more than agricultural labour and incomes from both were propelled by a steep rise in wages for rural unskilled labour. While lower dependency rates and transfers — from remittances and social programmes — have contributed to a reduction in poverty they are not the primary drivers of the poverty decline between 2005 and 2012.

A previous article in this series examined how India’s structural and spatial transformation — the shift from agriculture to services and industry and from rural to urban areas — is changing the relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction. We now examine how household incomes grew and helped reduce poverty. We ask how different sources of income contributed to poverty reduction. We also examine how these contributions compare with the effect of changes in the composition of households including demographic changes.
Our analysis shows that the changes commonly associated with structural transformation were the primary drivers of poverty reduction at the household level during 2005-2012. Increase in labour earnings was a major factor in reducing poverty. While both agricultural and non-agricultural earnings increased the rise was most rapid for non-agricultural wages and salaried work. This was in turn linked to workers shifting out of agriculture toward wage/salaried non-agricultural work that yields higher earnings. The largest shifts occurred among the poorest which was accompanied by rising wages in casual employment. In broad sectoral terms rising income from the non-agricultural sector was the most important driver of the observed changes contributing to nearly 46 per cent of national poverty reduction. In terms of employment categories changes in wage/salaried work contributed to nearly half of the reduction in poverty.
As expected there are urban-rural differences. Rising incomes from non-agricultural employment and self-employment were more important for poverty reduction in urban areas. In rural areas on the other hand shifts in employment away from agriculture contributed much more to poverty reduction. The pace of transformation was thus more rapid in rural areas which had a much higher share of employment in agriculture than urban areas to start with.
Changes in the composition of households contributed to poverty decline as well (see figures). This occurred as the share of working members in households rose. These changes were partly due to a fall in the share of household members who were too young or too old to be of working age; in other words due to a change in dependency ratios. This demographic dividend makes more workers available at the macro level and complements the structural transformation of the Indian economy.
Rising incomes from other sources — public and private transfers rent or interest income — contributed to poverty reduction as well. This was more so in rural areas. The largest share of non-labour income came from remittances which increased significantly. The steep rise in domestic remittances which form a part of total remittances suggests that urban and rural areas are becoming increasingly integrated highlighting another marker for structural transformation.
Thus faster poverty reduction since 2005 appears to be closely linked to the pattern of structural transformation occurring in India. The falling dependency ratio and crucially the steep rise in wages for unskilled work reinforced the effects of structural transformation. The growth in unskilled wages however occurred due to a somewhat fortuitous confluence of factors which we will examine in a future article in this series.
Looking ahead important challenges remain. These include accelerating the speed at which the chronically poor — many of whom belong to the Scheduled Tribes — escape poverty. Another challenge is to ramp up the pace of upward mobility so that households increasingly become part of an economically secure middle class. This calls for faster creation of higher-productivity jobs. Upcoming articles in this series will examine these challenges in detail.

Business confidence falls 6.7% in fourth quarter last fiscal: NCAER

The business confidence fell 6.7 per cent in the fourth quarter last fiscal signalling subdued sentiments says an NCAER survey.

“The 96th round of the Business Expectations Survey (BES) shows that the Business Confidence Index (BCI) registered a decrease of 6.7 per cent in April 2016 over January 2016 on a quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) basis thus hinting that business sentiments have remained subdued since the last quarter.

The current round of survey is pertaining to the January-March quarter of FY 2015-16.

“Further BCI has continued to fall on a year-on-year basis (12.0 per cent)” the survey by economic think-tank National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) said.

Three of the four components of the BCI shows a deterioration in sentiments between January and April 2016 while one component has increased marginally it added.

As per the survey in April 2016 only 43.8 per cent of the firms expected that the financial position would be better in the next six months versus 59.8 per cent of the firms in January 2016.

As many as 44.8 per cent of the firms perceive that the financial position of firms would remain the same in the next six months.

The survey said the eastern region showed a significant improvement (11.2 per cent) in the BCI whereas the western (-15.8 per cent) and southern (-17.9 per cent) regions have showed a sharp dip in it and the northern region (-0.5 per cent) hardly showed any change in it on a q-o-q basis.

“The maximum decline in BCI of 11.4 per cent has been recorded by firms with an annual turnover of 1–10 crore” it pointed out.
The survey said there has been an improvement in political sentiments in April over January 2016 with the Political Confidence Index (PCI) showing a q-o-q rise of 2.1 per cent.

NCAER has been conducting the Business Expectations Survey (BES) every quarter since 1991.

It tracks the business sentiments of over 500 Indian companies to compute the composite Business Confidence Index (BCI).

India Inc’s business confidence dips, reveals NCAER study

Their survey index of firms dipped in JanApril to a 10quarter low; however political confidence measure rose

India Inc’s confidence in the economy and their businesses fell to a 10quarter low in the threemonth period ending April this year showed a survey of the National Council of Applied Economic Research.

Their Business Confidence Index (BCI) declined to 121.6 points in the latest round 6.7 per cent lower than the 130.3 points in the quarter ended January. However the Political Confidence Index (PCI) rose 2.1 per cent to a fourquarter high of 139.2 points. However it was nowhere near the peak of 183 points witnessed for the Narendra Modi government in the quarter ended January 2015.

Three of the four components of the BCI showed a deterioration in sentiment between January and April; one component had increased marginally. BCI was mainly driven down by deterioration in sentiment of the component on whether the ‘financialposition of firms will improve in the next six months’. In April only 43.8 per cent of the companies thought so versus 59.8 per cent in January. As many as 44.8 per cent of the companies thought there would be no change

All the five sectors showed deterioration in business sentiment in April over January indicating the decline in sentiment was wide­ranging. However the fall in BCI was moderate in the case of services and consumer durables (by 1.4 and 2.9 per cent respectively) whereas it fell sharply by 9.5 9.3 and 8.8 per cent respectively in the intermediate goods consumer non­durables and capital goods sectors.

The eastern region showed a significant improvement (11.2 per cent) in BCI the western (minus 15.8 per cent) and southern (minus 17.9 per cent) ones a sharp dip and the northern region (minus 0.5 per cent) hardly any change quarter on quarter.

All groups of companies recorded a decline in business sentiment except those in which annual turnover was less than Rs 1 crore which showed a marginal increase of 0.3 per cent between January and April. The biggest decline in BCI of 11.4 per cent was in firms with annual turnover of Rs 1–10 crore.

All groups of companies across type of ownership registered a decline. The largest in BCI of 7.4 per cent was at partnership or individual­owned companies.

Overall sentiments regarding production domestic sales exports imports of raw materials and pre­tax profits continued to remain subdued in April over January. Expectations regarding the costs of raw materials labour and electricity remained muted. Hence after showing positive signs of turning in January the sentiment at labour markets again took a turn for the worse as a result of which these continued to remain subdued.

Even as PCI rose over the earlier quarter the outlook was mixed — expectations improved in the case of four components and worsened in four others. The components for which more positive responses were recorded were ‘managing a conducive political climate’ ‘managing the exchange rate’ ‘managing unemployment’ and ‘managing overall economic growth’. A decline was recorded in positive responses on ‘managing government finances’ ‘external trade negotiations’ ‘pushing the economic reforms forward’ and ‘managing inflation’.

77 percent Indian parents expect to live with sons in old age

Almost 77 percent of Indian parents expect to live with their sons in old age while seven percent want to live with their daughters according to the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) conducted jointly by researchers from University of Maryland and National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) New Delhi.

These are the findings from the IHDS-2 (2011-12) data-set covering a representative sample of 41554 households across 33 states and union territories in both rural and urban areas.

In Haryana the state with India’s lowest child sex ratio (834 females per 1000 males) 90 percent of respondents said they would prefer to live with their sons in old age rather than their daughters.

Maharashtra was next with 85 percent of parents saying they expected support from sons.

Sons vs daughters: Many Indians want at least one daughter.

While 73 percent of the people surveyed said they should ideally have one daughter 11 percent said they should ideally have two daughters.

While as many as 60 percent said they ideally wanted one son 26 percent said they wanted two sons.

While more people (73 percent) want at least one daughter when asked preferences for an extra child only six said they wanted daughters.

The survey was based on indirect questions to test people’s attitudes. Some questions asked: How many sons or daughters would they ideally prefer to have? If they were to have an extra child what sex would they prefer?

IndiaSpend plotted the preference for sons as the extra child with the sex ratio across Indian states.

Maharashtra has a low child sex ratio (894 females per 1000 males) and a high preference for a son (39 percent) for an extra child.

Sons as support for the declining years.

The main reason Indian parents prefer sons is that Indians expect to depend on them in their old age.

More than three-fourths (77 percent) of the respondents said they expect to live with their sons when old. Only 16 percent Indians said they would consider living with their daughters.

States in the south see higher percentages than the national average.

Tripura has the highest percentage of parents (72 percent) preferring to live with daughters in their old age followed by Tamil Nadu (17 percent).

The perception that parents can live with daughters has improved over the last seven years: Asked if they would consider living with daughters 14 percent said yes during a survey in 2004-05; 16 percent said yes in 2011-12.

Can’t ask daughters for money.

As many as 74 percent of Indians expect sons to support them financially during old age. Only 18 percent said they may consider taking money from daughters in old age.

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