Morung Express News
Dimapur | December 20
Women’s participation in household decisions is highest in Nagaland but when it comes of ownership of house or land, it is other way around, revealed a national health survey released recently.
According to the Fact Sheets of Key Indicators of 22 States/UTs from Phase-I of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) 2019-20, a total of 99.2% of ‘currently married women’ usually participate in three household decisions in Nagaland.
The decisions pertained to health care for herself, making major household purchases, and visits to her family or relatives, the survey said.
Though high across the board, interestingly, the survey revealed that the participation was higher in rural than in urban areas at 98.1% and 99.8% respectively. In the last survey in 2015-16 (NFHS-4), it was 97.4 %.
Across India, however, women’s participation in three household decisions was high and above 80%.
The survey, however, had a contrasting picture regarding ownership of house or land (age 15-49 years) in Nagaland, which showed further decline from NFHS-4.
According to the latest survey, ‘Women owning a house and or land (alone or jointly with others) declined from 35.2 in 2015-16 to 26.9% in 2019-20. It also revealed better status at rural areas at 28.9% as against 23.4% in rural areas.
The data may be reflective of the patrilineal inheritance, followed in the Naga society.
Nagaland was third lowest among the North East states, while Tripura had the lowest rate at 17.2%, a sharp decline from 57.3% in 2015-16. Mizoram was at second with 20.8%.
Ownership of land or houses (alone or jointly with others) in other NE states were much higher with Meghalaya leading the indicator with 65.0% followed by Manipur 58.4%; Sikkim 53.1% and Assam 42.7.
Other States/UTs with higher than 50% ownership were in descending order were: Ladakh (72.2%), Karnataka (67.6), Telengana (66.6%), Jammu and Kashmir (57.3%), Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu (55.8%) and Bihar (55.3%).
Other status of women’s empowerment
In other parameters of women’s empowerment used in the survey, Nagaland’s status was much better with 63.7% of ‘women having a bank or savings account that they themselves use’ in 2019-20, up from 38.8% in 2015-16.
Ownership of mobile phone by women also increased from 70.4% to 82.5% during the same period, with as high as 93.0% in urban areas.
Women aged 15-24 years who use hygienic methods of protection during their menstrual period, including locally prepared napkins, sanitary napkins, tampons, and menstrual cups, also increased from 72.4% in 2015-16 to 80.2%.
During the same period, “Ever-married women aged 18-49 years who have ever experienced spousal violence” declined from 13.1% to 6.4%; Ever-married women aged 18-49 years who have experienced physical violence during any pregnancy from 0.5% to 0.4%; and young women aged 18-29 years who experienced sexual violence by age 18 also declined from 7.6 % to 1.6%.
Women who worked in the last 12 months and were paid in cash also increased 22.7% to 23.6%.
As per the factsheet on key indicators and trends for Nagaland, the fieldwork in the state was conducted from July 15 to December 6, 2019, by Research and Development Initiative (RDI) Pvt. Ltd. Information was gathered from 10,112 households, 9,694 women, and 1,456 men.
