- Friday, January 24, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
IN India, women are often called ‘home ministers’ because of their overwhelming presence in domestic affairs. It is not an exaggeration to say that more women are engaged in making decisions at home but when it comes to owning property, either jointly or alone (house or land), the scenario is less than inspiring.
According to data from the first phase of the round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS) released by the Indian government in December last year, fewer women are owning property, either jointly or alone, than in 2017.
The data released for 22 states and Union Territories also showed that more rural women own property or land compared to their urban counterparts.
The NFHS of 2019-20 (also called NFHS-5) report showed that women from north-eastern states of India like Nagaland (99.2 per cent) and Mizoram (98.8 per cent) are having more influence in household decision-making (when seen in comparison with NFHS-4 of 2015-16). Almost every woman, particularly in rural Nagaland, said that she had a greater say in domestic decision-making. In the eastern state of Bihar, more women (86.5 per cent) were found to have a greater voice in domestic affairs compared to that found under NFHS-4 (75.2 per cent).
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As per the NFHS, women are considered to take part in household decisions if they make decisions – alone or together with their husband – in matters related to healthcare, major household purchases and visits to the woman’s family or relatives. Ladakh, however, showed a reduced agency in household decision-making with NFHS-5 showing more than seven per cent decrease than NFHS-4.
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Also, more rural women reported to have greater say in the decision-making than their urban counterparts in some states. In the north-eastern state of Sikkim, 94 per cent of the rural women were able to have a bigger say in decision-making compared to only 80 per cent among the urban women. In some states, the urban women had a greater say in domestic decision-making with the eastern state of West Bengal leading the way with more than 96 per cent. Less than 86 per cent of the rural women there had a greater say in decision-making.
Figures nosedive when it comes to women’s ownership
But while the percentage of influence in domestic decision-making is overall high for women across states, it nosedives when it comes to the question of women owning land or property either on their own or jointly. Women in more than half of 21 states and UTs reported a fall in property ownership. In the north-eastern state of Tripura for example, only 17.2 per cent of women said under NFHS-5 that they owned property. It is the steepest fall among all states as under NFHS-4, 57.3 per cent of the state’s women owned a land or house. Only in Telangana and Karnataka in South India and Ladakh in the north that more percentage of women owned a house or property, a comparison between the data of NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 showed.
When seen in terms of geographical divide, 14 states saw more rural women owning land or property than their urban counterparts. Mizoram showed the sharpest divide with twice as many rural women owning property than their urban counterparts.
In 14 states, more rural women than urban women owned land and property than their urban counterparts. Mizoram has the sharpest divide, where twice as many rural women were owners of property. In Telangana, 74.5% of rural women own a house and/or land as compared to only 53.9% of urban women.
Only West Bengal and Sikkim showed more urban women owning land and property than the rural ones.
While the NFHS-5 data do not provide disaggregated details of women owning land and houses, that from NFHS-4 suggests that more Scheduled Tribe women (40%) are likely to have a sole ownership of property, followed by those from other backward castes (38%) and Scheduled Castes (36%).
