Gender Inequalities and Demographic Behavior: India

Abstract

As India prepares for the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), it is clear that the country’s population policy faces a number of serious challenges. Although India was the first country to announce an official family planning program in 1952, its population has grown from 361 million in 1951 to 844 million in 1991. This is one of three reports on the relationship between gender equity, family structure and dynamics, and the achievement of reproductive choice prepared by the Population Council for the 1994 International Year of the Family and the 1994 ICPD. These reports provide critical reviews of the relationship between gender inequality and demographic behavior in three demographically significant, culturally distinct parts of the developing world: Egypt, India, and Ghana and Kenya. The purpose of the reports is to help governments and international agencies design and implement policies that are affirmative of women, sensitive to the family’s central role in resource allocation and distribution, and effective in achieving broad-based population and development goals.