A STUDY OF SINGLE MOTHERS IN FOUR METRO CITIES OF INDIA

Transcription

1 A STUDY OF SINGLE MOTHERS IN FOUR METRO CITIES OF INDIA An Initiative by Ministry of Women and Child Development Conducted by Partners in Development Initiatives Year: 2011

2 Executive Summary Traditionally death of a spouse was the commonest cause of single parent family but now more and more single parent families are visible as a result of divorce or separation of couples with children. There has been a world- wide increase in single parenting and a general increase in children living in single parent homes. The increase in single-parent families over the past few decades, has led to a serious debate on the impact it would have on society and how it would affect the children. A single mother is a woman, taking care of her children, but does not have the support of her husband in raising children. In India, with gradual break-up of joint family system and with increasing rate of divorce, the single mothers are left alone to fend for themselves. The plight of single mothers has been a subject for research in recent years. With support from Ministry of Women and Child Development, Partners in Development Initiatives undertook this study to understand the plight of single mothers in the country. The objectives of the present study are to map the socio- economic profile of single mothers and understand the challenges and difficulties faced by them. The study was conducted in the four metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata during the period December 2011 to March The study adopted both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies-conducting a quantitative survey of single mothers and in-depth interviews (case studies) of single mothers living in the four cities. A survey of one thousand single mothers i.e. 250 single mothers from each of the four cities was conducted with the help of a semi-structured questionnaire. In addition 20 case studies, 5 from each of the cities (based on in-depth interviews) were conducted not only to supplement the findings of quantitative survey but also to understand the circumstances under which they became single and the way they are coping with the situation. Since the objective of the present study is to focus on single mothers belonging to low economic strata of society; in each city such localities where low income households reside were identified. In each city, one female team leader and four to five female field investigators were appointed for conducting the field work. Of the 1000 single mothers interviewed, around 54% of the sample mothers were widows, one fourth were separated women, 15% were deserted or abandoned by their husbands and only 6% were legally divorced. The study provides information on the circumstances under which they became single; cause of death of husband in case of widows, reason for separation/divorce in case of divorced/separated women, their present living arrangement, their present living conditions etc. The average age of the sample single mothers works out to be 33 years and there is not much city wise variation in their ages except that women from Kolkata are slightly younger; average age of mothers from Kolkata works out to be 30 years. Since the study is including mothers belonging to lower strata of society, it is not surprising to know that the level of education of these women is fairly low. However considering that they belong to a fairly younger age group and living in a metro city, it is rather shocking to know that as high as 35 percent of them are illiterate. Compared to other cities, women from Kolkata seem much less educated as nearly half of them are illiterate. In the other three cities nearly 28% of the mothers have completed schooling and in Chennai and Delhi another 8% have studied beyond schooling. The employment pattern of the sample single mothers shows that around 15% of them are unemployed. The job of a domestic servant/cook/ayah seems most sought after employment by these women as nearly 40% of the sample women are engaged in this occupation. Since the women from Kolkata are less educated, as many as 63% work as domestic help and only around 5% are in salaried jobs. While in other cities (in particular Chennai and Delhi) a much lower proportion work as domestic help and a much higher proportion of mothers are in salaried employment. Although the percentage unemployed is more or less same among the various categories of single mothers (15 to 17%), proportion engaged in salaried employment is much higher among legally divorced. 2

3 In more than one fifth of the cases in Chennai and 17% of cases in Delhi, cause of death of the husband has been reported as accident. In these two cities another 7 to 8% of widows reported suicide/murder as a reason for their husband s death. Alcoholism turns out to be another important cause of death of these men. The HIV/AIDS related death of their husbands has been reported by quite a few widows in Chennai (6.3%) and Mumbai (11.3%). Husband had an affair with another woman turns out to be the most important reason for marital discord. In Mumbai and Chennai this reason was mentioned by a very high percentage of women-43% in Mumbai and 38% in Chennai. Men having extra marital relationship with other woman as a reason for divorce/separation has been corroborated by a number of case studies conducted by this study team. Alcoholism and related issues like physical violence are also mentioned by the single mothers as major reasons for divorce/separation. It is interesting to note that in nearly 50% of the cases (in Delhi 60% of such cases); it is the women who took the decision to call off the marriage. In around 37% of the cases (in Kolkata 50% of such cases), the husband seems to have taken unilateral decision to divorce/live separately. Only in 13 percent of such cases, the decision has been a joint one. As many as 46% of the sample women who have had a legal divorce and 54% of separated /deserted women have become single almost 5 years after their marriage. What is even more surprising is that nearly one fifth of women have taken a decision to live alone i.e. either divorce or live separately or were deserted by their husbands ten years after marriage. Of the total sample single mothers, around 90% have children of schooling age. It was found that around 18% of the single mothers are not sending their children to school- this percentage is highest among the deserted women at 22% and least among the legally divorced. Although child not interested in studies has also been mentioned as a reason for not educating the child, financial difficulties seem to be a major reason. Nearly 50% of them have indicated non-affordability as a reason; in 17% of the cases the child had to take up a job in order to support the family and in another 15% of the cases the child has to take care of the younger siblings. More than 50% of the sample women are living in slums and another one third are in resettlement colonies i.e.in low income colonies. While in the case of widows/ separated/ abandoned women more than 50% reside in the slums, in the case of divorced women only around 40% live in the slums. While in Delhi, nearly 70% of the sample mothers are living in a pucca house, in Kolkata the percentage living in a pucca house is much lower at 17%. The most important indicator of economic status of any household or a person is their income. In order to assess the economic status of the sample single mothers, the survey questionnaire collected detailed information on number of earning members in the single mother households, number of dependents, income of all household members from various sources, per capita income of the household etc. The study also makes an attempt to understand the saving pattern of these women and to know whether they have a savings account in a bank, chit fund etc. It is a common practice for the poor and low income households to live perpetually on borrowed money. The study tries to estimate the indebtedness of single mother households and their source from which they borrow. In most of the households there is only one earning member. This is not surprising since, more than 60% of single mothers are living alone with their children and another one third of mothers are living with their parents. Nearly 63 percent of households have single earning member, and a fourth of the households have two earning members. Nearly 24 percent of households have one dependent, 32 percent have two and nearly a fifth has three and more than three dependents. There is a huge variation both in number of earning members and the number of dependents among the different cities. The highest proportion of households with single earning member (77 percent) is seen in Chennai, while Kolkata has the lowest (45 percent), but it also has the highest proportion of households with two earning members (about 33 percent). While Chennai has the highest proportion of households with one and two dependents, it also has the lowest proportion of households with more than three dependents (5.6 percent). In both Delhi and Kolkata nearly 27 percent of the households have more than three dependents, while the proportion is slightly lower at 21.5 percent in Mumbai. The frequency distribution of single mother households by their annual household income shows that nearly 36 percent of the sample belongs to lowest income category -having annual household income of less than Rs. 36,000 and another 32 percent are in the 3

4 next category. Thus nearly 68 percent of the sample households have annual income of less than Rs. 60,000. This again is not surprising since the focus of the present study is on single mothers belonging to the lower strata of society, and nearly 35 percent of sample mothers are not even literate. Nearly 52 percent of the sample households in Kolkata and 45 percent in Mumbai come under the lowest income strata, while in Chennai nearly 47 percent of households are in annual income category of Rs.36,001 to Rs. 60,000. Delhi, on the other hand has the highest proportion of households (24.3 percent) in the highest income category. The average annual household income of the sample works out to be Rs. 68,113 with Delhi having the highest with Rs.1,11,028 and Kolkata having the lowest with Rs.44,254. The per capita household income works out to Rs.16,613 for the whole sample, once again with Delhi having the highest with Rs. 25,085 and Kolkata having the least with Rs.9748 among the four cities studied. The legally divorced mother households appear to be economically better off than other categories in the sample. Their average household income of Rs.1,13,165 and per capita income of Rs.27,942 are much higher than those of other categories of women. This is because nearly 27.1 percent of divorced mother households have income above Rs.1,20,000. Majority of the sample households have single earning members and nearly 68% of households have income (from all sources) of less than Rs.60,000 per annum, and only about a tenth have annual income above Rs.1,20,000. The various sources of income of households include rental income, different types of pensions, alimony in case of divorced women, remittances etc. As the sample single mothers belong to poor income households, it is seen that only a small proportion of households get rental income (8.7 per cent). The BPL widows who belong to poor economic strata of society are entitled to monthly pension from the government. Even though most of the sample widows of this study belong to low income category, only 17 % of widows reported getting widow pension. This could probably be due to the fact that many of them are less than 40 years of age. More than 80% of the widows have been denied their share in the inlaws property. Only 5.6 percent of the sample widows have received a share and about 4.5 percent hope that their children will inherit it at some point of time, while 8.8 per cent of the widows reported that there was no property in the husband s family. Around 36% of the single mother households have savings accounts in post office/ bank. Only about 22% of the households get remittances from outside, and majority (62.6%) of them are from the women s relatives. Although about 15.5% of the households get remittances from husband s family, it is mostly in respect of widow households while about 35.6% of the sample households have post office/bank accounts, as low as only 5% of the women or their children have insurance coverage. The single mothers seem to live perpetually on borrowed money as nearly 45% of the households have borrowed in the last one year, that too to meet the day today expenses. Nearly 15 percent of the households liquidated their assets when they became single that too mostly to meet regular expenses. The role of single mothers was found to be very stressful and challenging and along with emotional and psychological problems, they face financial difficulties in meeting even the regular expenses of running a home. The data also shows that more than 40% of divorced women and more than 20 % of separated mothers felt relieved once they left their husbands. When they were asked to mention the persons who had given them the maximum support, with the exception of widows more than 60% of single mothers have mentioned their parents. In addition to parents, a good percentage (in the case legally divorced women 37%) has mentioned their brother as someone who has given them maximum support. As far as the widows are concerned, around 45% have mentioned their parents and another 18% their in-laws, as someone who has given them maximum support. The survey questionnaire had a series of questions to understand the attitude of society towards single mothers and their relationship of single mothers with their parents and in-laws. While 15% of divorced women, 16% of separated women and 17% of abandoned women have reported that society is treating them differently, in case of widows the percentage complaining against society has worked out to be much lower at 7%. This is understandable since in the eyes of society, while death of a husband is 4

5 fate/destiny, divorce or separation is under the control of a woman. Hence the society may be more sympathetic towards widows. More than 80% of single mothers have a cordial relationship with their parents. As far as continuing relationship with in-laws is concerned, one does not expect such cordial relationship. It is very heartening to know that the single mothers do not become a recluse and they do interact with the outside world. Nearly two thirds of the sample women always make it a point to socialize with neighbors and more than 60% of women are invited for social functions like Puja and weddings. Only a very small percentage of mothers (4%) have said that they never socialize or they are never invited for social functions. One of the problems people face in big cities is finding a suitable residential accommodation. More than one fourth of the single mothers have complained that they do face difficulties in getting accommodation on rent. Around 10 percent of the sample single mothers have also faced sexual harassment. The present study not only tried to find out about the problems faced by single mothers in raising the children, but also about the expectation of the mothers regarding their children s future. The survey questionnaire included a few questions to understand the attitude of the society towards the children of single parents When the mothers were asked about the difficulties faced by them in bringing up children, 57% mentioned financial difficulties. While among the legally divorced women 44% talked about financial difficulties, among the separated women and abandoned women, percentage mentioning financial difficulties was much higher at 65 and 63 respectively. One fourth of the mothers feel that they are not able to provide good food to their children because of financial crunch. As sole earners their income may not be enough to make ends meet. Not able to spend quality time with the children and unable to pay attention to their education are the other major problems faced by single mothers. Disciplining children and preventing them from getting into bad habits like smoking are very important concerns of any parent. In the absence of a male companion this task was considered to be more difficult for mothers especially with regard to disciplining boys. Nearly 64% of the mothers (in the case of legally divorced mothers as high as 78%) want their children to be well educated. Around 35% want their children to have a secured job with a good salary and nearly one fourth of the mothers do not want their children to be dependent on anybody and want their children to be self reliant. More than 60% of single mothers wanted help in some form or the other for improving their economic condition like secured jobs either for themselves or for their children and financial help for setting up business. Even in the case of daughters, these single mothers are giving importance to their education rather than their marriage. Not many single mothers seem to know about the various government schemes that are available except for widow pension. The major recommendations from the study included a scheme to provide help to single mothers having a male child based on their condition and economic status so that they would be able to educate the male child as over 50 % were among male children of single mothers were not sent to school. The survey also brings out the difficulties faced by single mothers in mastering any skill which will help them generate a livelihood. The single mothers should be linked with the existing job/work oriented vocational training programs for women implemented by NGOs/companies or VT programs especially focusing on single mothers should be initiated to be able to generate livelihood opportunities for single mothers. 5

6 Research team led by: Ms. Ramamani Sundar Coordinated by: Ms. Piyali Acharya Researchers: Ms. Diti Mookharjee, Ms. Meenakshi Babar, Ms. Uma Ravikumar, Ms. Chitrakshi Vashisht, Ms. Anjana Badola 6