About nine in 10 Indians agree with the notion that a wife must always obey her husband, revealed the latest Pew Research Center survey, which studies how Indians view gender roles in families and society. Nearly two-thirds of the 29,999 people surveyed “completely agreed” with this sentiment. According to the report, while 55 per cent of Indians believed that men and women make equally good political leaders, they mostly favour traditional gender roles in family life.
62 per cent said that both men and women should be responsible for child care, traditional norms still held sway, with 34 per cent convinced that child care “should be handled primarily by women”.
A slim majority (54 per cent) said that both men and women should be responsible for earning money, as many as 43 per cent believed that earning an income is mainly the obligation of men. Also, 80 per cent of Indians agreed with the idea that when there are few jobs, men should have more rights to a job than women.
Gender Parity Within Families
The report, noting that prevalent gender norms “are part of a wider phenomenon in Indian society where, for a variety of historical, social, religious and economic reasons, families tend to place a higher value on sons rather than daughters, found that 40 per cent of Indians saw “sex selective abortion as acceptable in at least some circumstances”. However, 42 per cent found this practice “completely unacceptable”. Nearly 94 per cent said it is very important for a family to have at least one son, with the corresponding figure for daughters being 90 per cent. About 64 per cent of Indians also said that sons and daughters should have equal rights to inheritance from parents. But while four-in-ten adults said that sons should have the primary responsibility to care for ageing parents, only 2 per cent said the same about daughters.
Almost a quarter of Indians—23 per cent of those surveyed say that there is “a lot of discrimination” against women in our country, slightly more than the shares who say some religious groups or lower castes face a lot of discrimination. As described in the earlier Pew Research Center report, three-quarters of Indians say violence against women is a “very big problem”—greater than those who say communal violence and corruption is a very big problem (65 per cent and 76 per cent).
Global Comparison
The Pew Center report also compares gender attitudes in India with its findings in the rest of the world. The study, noting that a global median of 70 per cent said that it was very important for women to have the same rights as men, found a similar ratio in India, with 72 per cent of Indians saying gender equality is very important. However, Indians were less likely than people in North America (92 per cent median), Western Europe (90 per cent), and Latin America (82 per cent) to place a high value on gender equality. They were more likely to do so compared to sub-Saharan Africa (48 per cent median) and the Middle-East-Northern Africa region (44 per cent). Within South Asia, Indians were more likely to bat for gender equality than Pakistanis (72 per cent to 64 per cent).