indian council of medical research - Pondicherry University DSpace ...

on the Issue of school age g~rls (UNICEF,1990) Ch~ldren s poslt~on In soclety IS largely
dependent on thelr status In the home context The importance glven to the~r nutntlon
health educat~on and other actlvltles w~thln thew homes 15 a measure of thelr status
Therefore In the current stud!
these Issues were addressed marly to assess the
status of school age chlldren In the~r home m~l~eu w~th emphasls on bnnglng out the
difference between girls and boys These Issues have also been addressed uslng both
qual~tatlve and quantltatlve ethnograph~c methods, whlch have not been used In earl~er
stud~es from lnd~a to the best of the ~nvest~gatots knowledge The Issues cons~dered
were as follows -
7 5. I Gender preference in having children
lnd~a IS known to be one of the countr~es w~th a h~gh Index for son preference
(Oduntan 1995) Thls IS posslbly because of the fact that people In states I~ke. Punjab
Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are known to have a strong preference
for boys In these states, the under flve mortal~ty of the female chlld 15 much htgher than
the males (UNICEF.1990) Further, the lower sex ratlo In these states compared to the
natlonal average of 927, also lndlrectly reflected the better care glven to males
However, there IS a heterogene~ty of gender preference In lnd~a as shown by a h~gher
sex ratio ~n the Southern states of Tam11 Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh. Karnataka and
the Eastern state of Orlssa, where ~t IS
more than 950 (Potdar.1992) Some
lnvest~gators were of the oplnlon that the gender b~as was greater In areas where the
economlc potent~al of females was low
Rec~proc~ty and br~de wealth whlch were
common In the South, enhanced the value of women In these areas (Bardhan,1988)