Women's Empowerment: Bringing Women’s Rights and Health into Focus-A Comparative Analysis of State Fact Sheets of National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4 & 5

Abstract

Introduction: Women’s empowerment is a crucial factor for economic and social growth. India being committed to making women contribute equally to the growth of the country by 2030 (SDG-5), this study highlighted the major shortcomings in the domain of Women’s health, social and economic growth parameters. Methods: For this study, data related to health and non-health parameters were used from National Family Health Survey factsheets. In reference to “the Global Gender Gap measure by the World Economic Forum”, the indicators have been classified into 4 broad themes, for each of which, indicators were selected from NFHS factsheet for analysis, interpretation, and reporting. Results: A2.9% increase in the child sex ratio from 991 to 1022 females per 1000 males over the last two NFHS rounds, indicates a significant societal shift in the country. Out of 21 selected indicators, 4 parameters namely Screening test for cervical and breast cancer, Marriage of women before 18 years of age and Anaemia amongst women have shown a negative change over the past 5 years. Conclusion: The study found that, India has made significant progress around the health, education, economic and social empowerment parameters. But to get an adequate assessment of developments, we need to expand the basket of indicators to holistically analyze change.