Health, Work and Empowerment of Marginalized Women in Moradabad District, Uttar Pradesh: A Sociological Study
Main Article Content
Abstract
Women from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes carry the combined weight of gender, caste and class. This paper examines the health status and empowerment of marginalized women in Moradabad district of western Uttar Pradesh and asks how the two are connected through work and nutrition. A descriptive-cum-diagnostic design was used. Data were collected from 400 women aged 18–59 years in three rural blocks and Moradabad city through a structured interview schedule, observation and case narratives. A 16-item Empowerment Index (α = .94) and a 12-item Health Status Index (α = .90) were constructed. Seven null hypotheses were tested with one-way ANOVA, independent-samples t-tests, chi-square, Pearson correlation and multiple regression. Empowerment differed significantly by social group (F(2, 397) = 12.24, p < .001), with OBC women scoring higher than SC and ST women. Women in paid work were more empowered than women confined to unpaid domestic work, yet they also worked longer days. Occupation was associated with musculoskeletal pain (χ²(5) = 54.82, p < .001), which was most common among agricultural labourers and brassware workers. Empowerment, dietary diversity and working hours together explained 25.6% of the variance in health status. Cost of treatment was the most common barrier to care across all three groups. The findings suggest that empowerment and health move together for marginalized women, and that policy has to address unpaid and paid work burdens alongside access to services.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
References
Alkire, S., Meinzen-Dick, R., Peterman, A., Quisumbing, A., Seymour, G., & Vaz, A. (2013). The Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index. World Development, 52, 71–91.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.06.007
Baru, R., Acharya, A., Acharya, S., Kumar, A. K. S., & Nagaraj, K. (2010). Inequities in access to health services in India: Caste, class and region. Economic and Political Weekly, 45(38), 49–58.
Batliwala, S. (1994). The meaning of women's empowerment: New concepts from action. In G. Sen, A. Germain, & L. C. Chen (Eds.), Population policies reconsidered: Health, empowerment, and rights (pp. 127–138). Harvard University Press.
Bloom, S. S., Wypij, D., & Das Gupta, M. (2001). Dimensions of women's autonomy and the influence on maternal health care utilization in a north Indian city. Demography, 38(1), 67–78.
https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.2001.0001
Chakravarti, U. (1993). Conceptualising Brahmanical patriarchy in early India: Gender, caste, class and state. Economic and Political Weekly, 28(14), 579–585.
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139–167.
Desai, S., & Andrist, L. (2010). Gender scripts and age at marriage in India. Demography, 47(3), 667–687. https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.0.0118
Field, A. (2018). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.
Goli, S., Maurya, N. K., & Sharma, M. K. (2015). Continuing caste inequalities in rural Uttar Pradesh. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 35(3/4), 252–272. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-07-2014-0049
Hochschild, A. R. (1989). The second shift: Working parents and the revolution at home. Viking.
International Institute for Population Sciences & ICF. (2021). National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 2019–21: India. IIPS.
Jejeebhoy, S. J., & Sathar, Z. A. (2001). Women's autonomy in India and Pakistan: The influence of religion and region. Population and Development Review, 27(4), 687–712. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2001.00687.x
Kabeer, N. (1999). Resources, agency, achievements: Reflections on the measurement of women's empowerment. Development and Change, 30(3), 435–464. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7660.00125
Krejcie, R. V., & Morgan, D. W. (1970). Determining sample size for research activities. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 30(3), 607–610. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316447003000308
Malhotra, A., Schuler, S. R., & Boender, C. (2002). Measuring women's empowerment as a variable in international development. World Bank.
Mehta, B., & Kapadia, S. (2008). Experiences of childlessness in an Indian context: A gender perspective. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 15(3), 437–460. https://doi.org/10.1177/097152150801500302
Mohindra, K. S., Haddad, S., & Narayana, D. (2006). Women's health in a rural community in Kerala, India: Do caste and socioeconomic position matter? Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 60(12), 1020–1026. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.2006.047647
Moonzwe Davis, L., Schensul, S. L., Schensul, J. J., Verma, R. K., Nastasi, B. K., & Singh, R. (2014). Women's empowerment and its differential impact on health in low-income communities in Mumbai, India. Global Public Health, 9(5), 481–494. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2014.904919
Moser, C. O. N. (1993). Gender planning and development: Theory, practice and training. Routledge.
Nussbaum, M. C. (2000). Women and human development: The capabilities approach. Cambridge University Press.
Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. (2011). Census of India 2011: Primary census abstract. Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.
Patel, V., & Oomman, N. (1999). Mental health matters too: Gynecological symptoms and depression in South Asia. Reproductive Health Matters, 7(14), 30–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0968-8080(99)90004-2
Rege, S. (1998). Dalit women talk differently: A critique of 'difference' and towards a Dalit feminist standpoint position. Economic and Political Weekly, 33(44), WS39–WS46.
Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford University Press.
Sen, G., & Östlin, P. (2008). Gender inequity in health: Why it exists and how we can change it. Global Public Health, 3(S1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441690801900795
Shroff, M., Griffiths, P., Adair, L., Suchindran, C., & Bentley, M. (2009). Maternal autonomy is inversely related to child stunting in Andhra Pradesh, India. Maternal & Child Nutrition, 5(1), 64–74. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-8709.2008.00161.x
Subramanian, S. V., Nandy, S., Irving, M., Gordon, D., Lambert, H., & Davey Smith, G. (2006). The mortality divide in India: The differential contributions of gender, caste, and standard of living across the life course. American Journal of Public Health, 96(5), 818–825. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2004.060103
Thorat, S., & Newman, K. S. (Eds.). (2010). Blocked by caste: Economic discrimination in modern India. Oxford University Press.
United Nations. (1979). Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. United Nations General Assembly.
United Nations. (1995). Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Fourth World Conference on Women.
United Nations. (2022). The Sustainable Development Goals report 2022. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Van der Kwaak, A. (1991). Women and health. Vena Journal, 3(1), 2–33.
World Health Organization. (2009). Women and health: Today's evidence, tomorrow's agenda. WHO.