UT tops the country in male-led rural households

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 3

Chandigarh has the highest number of male-headed households in rural India, shows the first-ever provisional data on social and economic indicators for villages in the country. This equally implies that the city has the lowest number of female-headed households in the entire rural India belt.

Of 15,657 Chandigarh households surveyed as part of the census released in the capital today by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Rural Development Minister Birender Singh, only 5.93 per cent were found to be led by women. The rest are led by males.

The overall national trends on household leadership indicate a growing number of female-led households in urban and rural spaces, with Chandigarh reporting the least number of such households. Nationally, 12.83 per cent of all households (17,91,64,759 surveyed across rural India) are led by women, as per the latest data.

The trends for Chandigarh are significant. On the first look, they reflect male dominance of rural households as expected of traditionally patriarchal societies. However, experts argue that female-led households are not essentially reflective of women’s empowerment.

“Female-led households are neither sure signs of empowerment nor of disempowerment. But research shows that most female-led households would not have an older male who is a breadwinner for the family. Such households tend to have the woman in the earning role and hence her leadership position. But equally this reflects trends of women’s desertion by males, male migration and single mothers who may have suffered abandonment. These are matters of deeper research,” Madhu Mehra, a leading women’s rights activist in Delhi, said.

But the fact that Lakshadweep and Kerala have reported the highest number of female-led households in India as against Chandigarh, which has the lowest, also shows that progressive societies have more women leading the household.

The position of women in rural households also reflects their standing in family hierarchy in terms of property ownership. The rise in the number of female-led households can also be explained by the fact that many state governments in India are now offering incentives for women to own property.

What the numbers reflect for rural Chandigarh, only detailed disaggregation of data will show.