Integrating adolescent livelihood activities within a reproductive health programme for urban slum dwellers in India

Abstract

While adolescents in India are facing a rapidly changing economic environment the life choices of adolescent girls are different from those of adolescent boys. Nearly half of 20-24-year-old women in India are married by age 18. Moreover most young women have little say in the timing of their marriage or the choice of spouse and after marriage most have limited power within their marital household. Adolescent girls are much less likely to be engaged in economic activities than adolescent boys; by ages 15-19 over 40 per cent of boys are economically active compared to about one-quarter of girls. When adolescent girls do participate in income-generating activities it is often in home-based work for which they may or may not be remunerated. Even in instances when girls are paid for their labour they may not retain control over their income. Adolescent girl’s lack of opportunities for generating income is coupled with restricted physical mobility within the community and limited decision-making power within the household. Given this situation programmes are needed that increase the ability of unmarried girls to have a say in their own lives and enhance the skills that expand life choices. By building social networks and developing critical financial and income generating capacities livelihoods programmes have the potential to increase the agency and decision-making power of adolescent girls. As broadly conceived the “livelihoods approach” to adolescent programming not only attempts to deliver technical and life skills but also seeks to transform the ways in which girls view themselves and the ways in which they are perceived by the community. However although a wide variety of livelihood programmes for adult women exist in India few focus on adolescent girls. Of those that do few employ rigorous scientific methods to evaluate the impact of the intervention. (excerpt)