How gender bias causes population explosion in India

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With only 2.4 percent of the world s land area and 20 percent of the world s population, India is one of the most densely populated nations in the world. Ranked next to China in population, India has a population of more than 1.34 billion people, that is expected to grow to 1.36 billion by the end of 2017. [1] Although the reasons cited for the rapidly growing population are poverty, illiteracy, low death rates, high fertility rates in India, as well as, immigration from neighbouring countries, gender bias significantly contributes to overpopulation. Also Read - Valentine's Day is the reason why so many people are born in November says study

Discrimination against women starts right from the womb and does not end till she is in her grave. Many might wonder how gender bias and over population are linked, but a closer scrutiny shows that marginalization of women is indeed a major cause of population explosion.

Preference for sons

In India, sons are preferred by parents as their net value is perceived to be higher than that of the daughters. Sons are believed to be the sole means of economic and social support. Sons supposedly provide old age support to parents, continue the lineage and perform karmic duties, while daughters are seen as an economic burden (read, dowry and marriage expenses). A woman is relegated to the lower position in their husband s family and her slot in her father s household ceases to exist. [3] This attitude causes the couples to continue begetting children till they fulfill their desire for a specific number of sons.

A Bengaluru study found that women who have not reached their ideal family size delay stopping childbearing till they can either get a son or until they have as many or more children than they want, and family size concerns outweigh the desire for a male child. [4]

A study from Ahmedabad indicated the son preference was higher among illiterate women. Similarly, son preference also varied among rural and urban areas, for example, a study reported a higher preference for sons in rural (94.3%) than urban areas (80.3%) in western regions of India. Socio-economic status, too, determined the gender preference as seen in the study results from West Bengal, where a preference for sons was significantly higher in participants with low socio-economic status and lower level of education. [5]

Preference for sons can influence a couple’s fertility behaviour. If the first born is not a son, they are more likely to have a larger family size till the preference is met. And in this milieu to beget sons, the population of India grows alarmingly.

Rapid population growth is not the only problem with a preference for sons. Diagnostic ultrasound technology became available in India during the eighties, and this opened up the opportunity to use the new technology for prenatal sex selection. Given the fact that in most regions of India, larger families are the norm, couples will continue to have children until they have a boy. Policy restrictions of only one or two children will only cause the couples to use sex selection to ensure the birth of a son. This combination has resulted in serious sex ratio imbalances. [6] This theory has been corroborated by the Bengaluru study which found that couples who desire to have smaller families, but have a persistent son preference (often pressured by their families), could create higher pressure to selectively abort female foetuses. [4]

Women s decision-making autonomy

Gender bias in India ranges from wage discrimination to barriers in owning land, to systemic violence against women. This discrimination prevents women from obtaining an education, health services, and legal status needed to improve their prospects.

Women, especially rural women, with no education are ignorant about sex and family planning. Studies have shown that female education is highly correlated with lower fertility rates, and lower fertility equates lower population growth. [7] Although recent figures do suggest lower fertility rates, this assumption does not necessarily indicate improved control over reproductive decision-making as most women have little control over their lives, let alone asserting their reproductive rights. It is always the husband who gets to decide every aspect of family planning including sterilisation of his wife.

Numerous studies have suggested that empowerment of women, including autonomy in the use of contraception, is a major factor that contributes to better demographic outcomes. [8] Even though women emphasize on contraception, the husband s uncooperative attitude makes it almost impossible for the woman to control pregnancy. Moreover, in India societal sanction plays a very important role. A woman emphasizing the use of contraception is seen as being assertive in sex and is thus considered indecent. Government s sterilization campaigns are mainly focused on women as male sterilization is still not accepted because of socio-cultural bias. For example, men think they will lose their virility or ability to work if they are sterilized. Some men fear that they will be ridiculed if they are sterilized and the wife gets pregnant! Read here World Population Day 2017: 4 safe and effective Ayurvedic spermicides to prevent pregnancy

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data reveals that 4.5 million women are sterilized every year in India. Not surprisingly, 34 percent of women sterilized were not informed that the procedure is permanent, and 68 percent were not informed about the side effects. [9]

Statistics also show that informed consent rates are extremely low and more so among the less educated or the financially weaker sections of the society. Since women have no reproductive choice, there is no room for them to space their children and limit family size. Result adding to the already bulging population.

Early marriage and continuous childbirth

There is a clear link between early marriage and overpopulation. Although the legal age for marriage in India is 18 years for women and 21 for men, in many parts of India, girls are married off way before the legal age. For example, in Rajasthan, a girl as young as five years old is betrothed and sent off to her marital home after she starts menstruating. Within a year or two she is expected to give birth. As it turns out, younger the bride, longer the childbearing age; and more the people in this country! Early marriage is not restricted to Rajasthan alone but is prevalent in almost all regions of the country, both, urban and rural. Read more about World Population Day 2017: 3 Ayurvedic contraceptives for men to prevent pregnancy

Religion and overpopulation

Some religions condemn abortion and artificial contraceptives labelling them as morally illicit and evil. For example, the Catholic Church believes contraception and sex education in schools would lead to moral and social collapse, destroy family life, and bring about divine wrath. [10] This religious condemnation causes fear among women with unwanted pregnancies and their families, leading to population growth. Women’s decision-making power and women’s autonomy together constitute women empowerment. Unless the women of this country have a say in the decision-making, especially with regard to sexual autonomy, we cannot expect to control the population explosion in India.

Impact of population explosion

The population explosion has an enormous negative impact on human values and socio-economic structure of any country. In India, the rapid increase in population has given rise not only to poverty, unemployment and shortage of employment opportunities and housing, and environmental degradation, but it seems to have created a shortage of food grains in the world as well. Supriya Sule, the MP who drafted the Two Child Norm Bill, 2014, stated, Recently, some countries have accused us of being the largest consumer of world’s food grains and oilseeds which has resulted in a worldwide shortage of these commodities thereby giving a push to inflationary trends in the world. This caused our government to initiate the Two Child Norm policy, which endeavours to promote and motivate married couples to opt for a small family, limiting the number to a maximum of two living children. [2] Read about World Population Day 2017: 7 off-beat ways you can help control population

India was the first country in the world to adopt a population policy for stabilizing population growth and launched the National Family Planning Programme way back in 1952. During the early years of the Programme, the focus was on the health aspect of family planning. Family planning as a strategy to stabilize population growth came only after the 1971 census, which brought to the fore the alarming rate at which India s population grew.

References

1. http://www.indiaonlinepages.com/population/india-current-population.html

2. http://164.100.47.4/BillsTexts/LSBillTexts/AsIntroduced/2711LS.pdf

3. Gupta MD, Zhenghua J, Bohua L, Zhenming X, Chung W, Hwa-Ok B. Why is son preference so persistent in East and South Asia? A cross-country study of China, India and the Republic of Korea. [14/08/2014];The World Bank Development Research Group Public Services and Rural Development. 2002.

4. Edmeades J, Pande RP, Falle T, Krishnan S. Son preference and sterilization use among young married women in two slums in Bengaluru city, India. Global public health. 2011;6(4):407-420. doi:10.1080/17441692.2010.533686.

5. Nithin K, Tanuj K, Unnikrishnan B, et al. Gender preferences among antenatal women: a cross-sectional study from coastal South India. African Health Sciences. 2015;15(2):560-567. doi:10.4314/ahs.v15i2.31.

6. Hesketh T, Min JM. The effects of artificial gender imbalance: Science & Society Series on Sex and Science. EMBO Reports. 2012;13(6):487-492. doi:10.1038/embor.2012.62.

7. Brummet, Q. The Effect Of Gender Inequality On Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study. The Park Place Economist, Volume XVI.

8. Patrikar SR, Basannar DR, Seema Sharma M. Women empowerment and use of contraception. Medical Journal, Armed Forces India. 2014;70(3):253-256. doi:10.1016/j.mjafi.2013.12.014.

9. https://www.pop.org/project/stop-forced-sterilizations-in-india/#fn7.

10. Crabtree V. How Religion Is Making Overpopulation Worse. Church and State. 2015. Web.

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Published : July 7, 2017 1:30 pm | Updated:March 29, 2018 3:44 pm

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