Deprivation of Women in Northeast India: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Deprivation of women is an obstacle in effective human capital formation as well as in determination of future demographic dividend of an economy. Deprivation of women is a multidimensional and context specific issue. This study has attempted to investigate the extent and inequality of some indicators of deprivation of women across the states of northeast India. Female illiteracy rate, Incidence of child marriage, proportional gap of female headed households, workforce non-participation rate for female, rate of crime committed against women are the indicators considered in this study. This study is based on secondary data published by directorates of population census, 2011, and National Crime Records Bureau, 2012. In order to determine the positions of the states in northeast India and to compare them with West Bengal in respect of deprivation of women a weighted deprivation index for women (WDIW) of each state has been developed. We basically follow the Anand and Sen (Concept of human development and poverty: A multidimensional perspectives, UNDP: Background Paper for Human Development Report 1997) methodology for computing indices. Only the relevant principal components of the indicators have been replaced in place of the indicators and weights are generated from Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Atkinson measures of inequality have been applied to gauge the inequality of deprivation of women. This study explores that among the states in northeast India deprivation of women in Meghalaya is least, followed by Nagaland, Mizoram. Assam is the worst in position among the states of northeast India. In contrast to the state of West Bengal all the states of northeast India are better in position in terms of deprivation of Women. However, the states of northeast India are less diverse in terms of multifaceted deprivation of women.