Women's childhood experience: A perspective from rural Haryana, India

Type Working Paper - Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment
Title Women's childhood experience: A perspective from rural Haryana, India
Author(s)
Volume 23
Issue 4
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2013
Page numbers 437-461
URL http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10911359.2013.771525#.Vdnv9fntmko
Abstract
The childhood experience of women is an important aspect of study in order to promote a change in women's fertility behavior and individual perpetration of gender discrimination. We looked into different dimensions and correlates of childhood experiences by exploring data of 329 women in an ethnographic survey conducted in five villages of Haryana, India. We found women's childhood experiences in rural Haryana were relatively worse; a significant proportion of women had faced food discrimination during their childhood and also were abused/cursed by the family because of their gender. Almost none of the women were asked for their opinion before arranging their marriage and in most cases their marriage was considered a burden. We conclude that a life cycle approach should be taken to examine the situation of girls in rural India starting from early childhood into adolescence and womanhood in order to solve the problem of high gender discrimination within the society.

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