IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v354y2024ics0277953624005276.html

Disparity by caste and tribe: Understanding women's empowerment and health outcomes in India

Author

Listed:
  • Mal, Piyasa
  • Saikia, Nandita

Abstract

Women's empowerment status varies greatly in India according to caste, class, ethnicity and region. This paper aims to investigate the caste/tribe disparity in women's empowerment by region, the main correlates of each domain of empowerment, and the association of women's empowerment with nutritional and health care access outcomes, specifically anaemia, menstrual hygiene, and institutional delivery.

Suggested Citation

  • Mal, Piyasa & Saikia, Nandita, 2024. "Disparity by caste and tribe: Understanding women's empowerment and health outcomes in India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 354(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:354:y:2024:i:c:s0277953624005276
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117074
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953624005276
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117074?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Samarakoon, Shanika & Parinduri, Rasyad A., 2015. "Does Education Empower Women? Evidence from Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 428-442.
    2. Santosh Kumar & Emily A. Dansereau & Christopher J. L. Murray, 2014. "Does distance matter for institutional delivery in rural India?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(33), pages 4091-4103, November.
    3. Dean Karlan & Jake Kendall & Rebecca Mann & Rohini Pande & Tavneet Suri & Jonathan Zinman, 2016. "Research and Impacts of Digital Financial Services," NBER Working Papers 22633, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Maity, Bipasha, 2017. "Comparing Health Outcomes Across Scheduled Tribes and Castes in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 163-181.
    5. Colin Sumpter & Belen Torondel, 2013. "A Systematic Review of the Health and Social Effects of Menstrual Hygiene Management," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(4), pages 1-15, April.
    6. Sarah Hendriks, 2019. "The role of financial inclusion in driving women’s economic empowerment," Development in Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(8), pages 1029-1038, November.
    7. Farzana Afridi & Taryn Dinkelman & Kanika Mahajan, 2018. "Why are fewer married women joining the work force in rural India? A decomposition analysis over two decades," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 783-818, July.
    8. Bina Agarwal & Pervesh Anthwal & Malvika Mahesh, 2021. "How Many and Which Women Own Land in India? Inter-gender and Intra-gender Gaps," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(11), pages 1807-1829, November.
    9. Amrita Datta & Tanuka Endow & Balwant Singh Mehta, 2020. "Education, Caste and Women’s Work in India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(2), pages 387-406, June.
    10. Robin Richardson & Norbert Schmitz & Sam Harper & Arijit Nandi, 2019. "Development of a Tool to Measure Women’s Agency in India," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 26-53, January.
    11. Emran, M. Shahe & Shilpi, Forhad, 2015. "Gender, Geography, and Generations: Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Post-Reform India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 362-380.
    12. Amitava Saha, 2013. "An Assessment of Gender Discrimination in Household Expenditure on Education in India," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(2), pages 220-238, June.
    13. Pushpendra Singh & Falguni Pattanaik, 2020. "Unfolding unpaid domestic work in India: women’s constraints, choices, and career," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-13, December.
    14. Lilia Bliznashka & Ifeyinwa E Udo & Christopher R Sudfeld & Wafaie W Fawzi & Aisha K Yousafzai, 2021. "Associations between women’s empowerment and child development, growth, and nurturing care practices in sub-Saharan Africa: A cross-sectional analysis of demographic and health survey data," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(9), pages 1-30, September.
    15. Mosse, David, 2018. "Caste and development: Contemporary perspectives on a structure of discrimination and advantage," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 422-436.
    16. Naila Kabeer, 1999. "Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women's Empowerment," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 30(3), pages 435-464, July.
    17. Gupta, Soumya & Pingali, Prabhu & Pinstrup-Andersen, Per, 2019. "Women’s empowerment and nutrition status: The case of iron deficiency in India," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. K. Gayathri Reddy & Varsha, P. S. & L. N. Sudheendra Rao & Amit Kumar, 2019. "Exploring dimension, perceived individual tension and capacity building measure of women empowerment in India," Asian Journal of Empirical Research, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 9(5), pages 111-131, May.
    2. Asiedu, Elizabeth & Azomahou, Théophile T. & Getachew, Yoseph & Yitbarek, Eleni, 2021. "Share the love: Parental bias, women empowerment and intergenerational mobility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 846-867.
    3. O'Hara, Corey & Clement, Floriane, 2018. "Power as agency: A critical reflection on the measurement of women’s empowerment in the development sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 111-123.
    4. Balhasan Ali & Preeti Dhillon & Sivakami Muthusamy & Udaya Shankar Mishra, 2023. "Understanding Female Labour Force Participation and Domestic Work in India: The Role of Co-residence and Household Composition," Journal of Development Policy and Practice, , vol. 8(2), pages 162-193, July.
    5. Jayachandran, Seema & Biradavolu, Monica & Cooper, Jan, 2021. "Using Machine Learning and Qualitative Interviews to Design a Five-Question Women's Agency Index," IZA Discussion Papers 14221, IZA Network @ LISER.
    6. Fiala, Nathan & Garcia-Hernandez, Ana & Narula, Kritika & Prakash, Nishith, 2022. "Wheels of Change: Transforming Girls' Lives with Bicycles," IZA Discussion Papers 15076, IZA Network @ LISER.
    7. Josephine Nabayinda & Proscovia Nabunya & Ozge Sensoy Bahar & Samuel Kizito & Lindsay Stark & Phionah Namatovu & Susan S. Witte & Torsten B. Neilands & Mary M. McKay & Fred M. Ssewamala, 2025. "She Is a Guest in My House: Exploring the Barriers to Asset Development and Decision‐Making Autonomy Among Young Women in Southern Uganda," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(7), pages 1543-1554, October.
    8. Emran, M. Shahe & Jiang, Hanchen & Shilpi, Forhad, 2020. "Gender Bias and Intergenerational Educational Mobility: Theory and Evidence from China and India," GLO Discussion Paper Series 497, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    9. Annick Makongote & Branly Mbunga & Pierre Akilimali & Sofia Castro Lopes & Dieudonné Mpunga, 2024. "Women’s Empowerment and Associated Factors in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo: A Secondary Data Analysis of the Performance Monitoring Assessment Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(7), pages 1-14, July.
    10. Jo, Howard & Narayanan, Pradeep & Bharadwaj, Sowmyaa & Sinha, Mayank, 2025. "Challenges of using PAR to promote collective action with denotified tribes in India: Surfacing intersections and tensions between religious and other inequalities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    11. Mishra, Khushbu & Sam, Abdoul G., 2016. "Does Women’s Land Ownership Promote Their Empowerment? Empirical Evidence from Nepal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 360-371.
    12. Emran, M. Shahe & Jiang, Hanchen & Shilpi, Forhad, 2025. "Is gender destiny? Gender bias and intergenerational educational mobility in India," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    13. Castro-Bernardo, Maria Theresa M. & Cruz, Liezel S., 2022. "How Do Cooperatives Enable Empowerment Among Rural Women? Evidence from the Municipality of Cavinti, Laguna," Journal of Economics, Management & Agricultural Development, Journal of Economics, Management & Agricultural Development (JEMAD), vol. 8(2), December.
    14. Ragasa, Catherine & Kyle, Jordan & Yasmin, Sabina & Pande, Harshita & Sharma, Aanshi & Basu, Sampurna & Najjar, Dina, 2024. "Women’s Empowerment in Agrifood Governance (WEAGov) assessment framework insights from the India pilot study," IFPRI discussion papers 2313, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    15. Nath, Sunetra & Das, Gurudas, 2025. "Does women empowerment impact child well-being? Evidence from India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 367(C).
    16. Nathan Fiala & Ana Garcia-Hernandez & Kritika Narula & Nishith Prakash, 2022. "Wheels of Change: Transforming Girls' Lives with Bicycles," CESifo Working Paper Series 9865, CESifo.
    17. Yijun Yu & Hang Thu Nguyen-Phung & Hai Le, 2025. "Women’s Empowerment in Zimbabwe: Examining the Role of Educational Reform," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 177(2), pages 489-531, March.
    18. Agnes Quisumbing & Jessica Heckert & Simone Faas & Gayathri Ramani & Kalyani Raghunathan & Hazel Malapit, 2021. "Women’s empowerment and gender equality in agricultural value chains: evidence from four countries in Asia and Africa," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(5), pages 1101-1124, October.
    19. Kocabıçak, Ece & Dildar, Yasemin, 2025. "Women’s labour force participation in developing countries: The impact of gendered landownership rights," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    20. Shukla, Prakash Kumar & Reddy A, Bheemeshwar & Kumar, Dushyant, 2024. "Class in caste: Inequalities in human capital investments in children in India," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:354:y:2024:i:c:s0277953624005276. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.