Disempowerment of Women: The Experience of Indian States

Abstract

The present study uses National Family Health Survey, 2015–2016 (NFHS-4) data to compute a multidimensional disempowerment index for women from India. A state-level analysis shows that disempowerment levels of women from the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Bihar are found to be higher, with that of Bihar being the highest. Next, using a multilevel logistic model, the study explores the determinants of the level of women disempowerment. The probability of disempowerment is high among rural unemployed young Muslim women from joint families with low asset and education endowment and who witnessed parental violence as a child. Further, we found that the level of disempowerment of women from the state of Haryana is much higher as compared to its neighbouring state Punjab, where Haryana was an integral part of Punjab till 1966. A non-linear decomposition analysis reveals a significant contribution of Sikh religion on women’s autonomy in Punjab vis-à-vis Haryana.