INDIAN ATTITUDES TOWARD GENDER ROLES- KEY FINDINGS OF THE PEW RESEARCH CENTER SURVEY

THE CONTEXT: A new Pew Research Centre Report based on a survey has provided interesting findings on the gender attitude of Indians. This survey, named How Indians View Gender Roles in Families and Society has also been the basis of an earlier report of the same institution titled Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation (covered already as part of ED). This article examines the survey report in detail.

WHAT IS THE REPORT?

Based on a face-to-face survey of 29,999 Indian adults fielded between late 2019 and early 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the report looks at how Indians view gender roles at home and in society more generally. The survey was also the basis for a 2021 report on religion in India, was conducted by local interviewers in 17 languages, and covered nearly all of India’s states and union territories. The report captures the various aspects of the gender dynamics in India.

KEY FINDINGS FROM THE REPORT

WOMEN AS POLITICAL LEADERS:

• Indians broadly accept women as political leaders. India has a long history of women holding political power, from the 1966 election of Indira Gandhi, one of the world’s first woman prime ministers, to other well-known figures, such as Jayalalitha, Mamata Banerjee , and Sushma Swaraj.
• The survey results reflect this comfort with women in politics.
• Most adults say that women and men make equally good political leaders (55%) or that women generally make better leaders than men (14%).
• Only a quarter of Indian adults take the position that men tend to make better political leaders than women. (SEE FIGURE 1).

SUPPORT FOR TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES:

• While most Indians say that men and women should share some family responsibilities, many still support traditional gender roles.
• For instance, 62% of adults say both men and women should be responsible for taking care of children, while roughly a third of adults (34%) feel that childcare should be handled primarily by women.
• Similarly, a slim majority (54%) say that both men and women in families should be responsible for earning money, yet many Indians (43%) see this as mainly the obligation of men.
• Nearly nine-in-ten Indians (87%) completely or mostly agree with the notion that “a wife must always obey her husband.

PREFERENCE FOR THE CHILDREN:

• An overwhelming majority of Indian adults say it is very important for families to have both sons and daughters, and a substantial share is accepting of sex-selective abortion.
• Indians are united in the view that a family needs to have at least one son (94%) and, separately, a daughter (90%). Historically, in Indian society, families have tended to place a higher value on their sons than their daughters, a custom broadly referred to as “son preference.”
• One enduring manifestation of son preference has been the illegal practice of sex-selective abortions – using ultrasound or other tests to learn the sex of a foetus and terminating the pregnancy if the foetus is female.
• The survey finds that four-in-ten Indians say it is either “completely acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable” to “get a check-up using modern methods to balance the number of girls and boys in the family,” a euphemism that connotes sex-selective abortion.
• In contrast, roughly half of adults (53%) say that this practice is either somewhat or completely unacceptable.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE RELIGIOUS RITES:

• Most Indians (63%) say sons should be primarily responsible for parents’ last rites or burial rituals, although attitudes differ significantly across religious groups.
• Religious funeral practices for loved ones are widely seen as very important in India, and at least according to Hindu tradition, sons must perform the last rites for a parent to ensure freedom for the soul in the afterlife.
• Most Muslims (74%), Jains (67%), and Hindus (63%) say sons should be primarily responsible for funeral rituals, but far fewer Sikhs (29%), Christians (44%), and Buddhists (46%) expect this from sons.
• Instead, Sikhs, Christians, and Buddhists are more likely to say that both sons and daughters should be responsible for their parents’ last rites. Very few Indians, regardless of religion, say daughters should be primarily responsible for funeral rituals.

SUPPORT FOR TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES:

• Muslims are more likely than other Indians to support traditional gender roles in families, while Sikhs are often the least likely community to hold such views.
• For example, while most Indian Muslims (61%) say that men in a family should be primarily responsible for earning money, just 17% of Sikhs say this.
• And Muslims are more than twice as likely as Sikhs to assign sons the primary responsibility of caring for aging parents (43% vs. 17%).

RESPECT TO WOMEN:

• Indians favour teaching boys to respect women as a way to improve women’s safety. As described in a previous Pew Research Centre report, roughly three-quarters of Indian adults (76%) say violence against women is a “very big problem” in their country.
• About half of Indians (51%) say it is more important to teach boys to respect all women, while roughly a quarter (26%) say it is more important to teach girls to behave appropriately.

FIGURE 1: WOMEN AS POLITICAL LEADERS

FIGURE 2: PREFERENCE FOR CHILDREN

HOW INDIA’S GENDER ATTITUDES COMPARE GLOBALLY

Pew Research Centre has asked a couple of the questions on this survey in many countries around the world, allowing a glimpse of where Indians fit globally when it comes to public opinion on these issues. Across 47 countries and territories, a global median of 70% says it is very important for women to have the same rights as men, according to data from two recent waves of the Centre’s Global Attitudes survey. This is similar to the share of Indians who feel gender equality is very important (72%).
Indians are less likely than people in North America (92% median), Western Europe (90%), and Latin America (82%) to place high importance on women and men having the same rights. But they are more likely than those living in sub-Saharan Africa (48% median) and the Middle East-North Africa region (44%) to say this. Adults in Central and Eastern Europe (69% median) are roughly similar to Indians on this question. Within South Asia, Indians are somewhat more likely than Pakistanis to say it is very important for men and women to have equal rights (72% vs. 64%). Despite broadly aligning with global public opinion on equal rights for women, Indians tend to be more conservative than people in most other countries surveyed when it comes to gender dynamics in the home and the economy.

INDIA’S CHANGING GENDER NORMS: AN ANALYSIS

THE WAY FORWARD:

THE CONCLUSION: Although there may be issues related to the sample size, methodology etc, the Pew survey report provides in-depth analysis on the gender attitude of the Indian people. Designing a lasting change in gender attitudes requires meticulous planning and implementation and the PEW Research Centre survey is a wake-up call to commence that change.

QUESTIONS:

⦁ Discuss the salient features of the Pew Report on gender.

ADD TO YOUR KNOWLEDGE

ABOUT Pew RESEARCH CENTRE

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research. It studies U.S. politics and policy; journalism and media; internet, science and technology; religion and public life; Hispanic trends; global attitudes and trends; and U.S. social and demographic trends. All of the Center’s reports are available at www.pewresearch.org. Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder.