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Factsheet: Youth In India: Situation And Needs—Key Indicators, 2006-2007: Andhra Pradesh, International Institute For Population Sciences (Iips)

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This factsheet provides selected key indicators for the state of Andhra Pradesh, drawn from the Youth in India: Situation and Needs Study (Youth Study) 2006–07. The main goal of the Youth Study was to provide information on the situation of youth in India and the life choices available to them on a broad range of sexual and reproductive health issues, including both behaviors and their antecedents, through a population-based study. Findings are expected to inform evidence-based programming to address the health and other needs of young people. The subnational Youth Study was undertaken in six states: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, …

Empowering Married Young Women And Improving Their Sexual And Reproductive Health: Effects Of The First-Time Parents Project, K.G. Santhya, Nicole Haberland, Arup Das, F. Ram, R.K. Sinha, Usha Ram, S.K. Mohanty

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Population Council, in partnership with Child In Need Institute in Kolkata, Deepak Charitable Trust in Vadodara, and International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, initiated the First-time Parents Project in India to develop and test an integrated package of health and social interventions to improve married young women’s reproductive and sexual health knowledge and practices, enhance their ability to act in their own interest, and expand their social support networks. The project was formulated on the hypothesis that the periods immediately following marriage and surrounding the first pregnancy and birth offer a unique and powerful entry point for improving the …

Early Marriage And Sexual And Reproductive Health Risks: Experiences Of Young Women And Men In Andhra Pradesh And Madhya Pradesh, India, K.G. Santhya, Shireen J. Jejeebhoy, Saswata Ghosh

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Population Council undertook a large-scale study of married young women and men in two rural settings in India to assess their situation and vulnerability to HIV and other adverse sexual and reproductive health outcomes. Findings of the study clearly underscore the vulnerability of married youth to STI/HIV as a result of risky sexual experiences before, within, and after marriage. Furthermore, there is a need to sensitize healthcare providers to the special needs and vulnerability of married young people and orient them to the need for developing appropriate strategies to reach diverse groups of young people, including married young women …

Towards Messages That Matter: Understanding And Addressing Hiv And Srh Risks Among Married Young People In India, Armin Jamshedji-Neogi, Renu Kapoor, Jayashree Kumar, Ashwini Bhalerao Gandhi, Lakshmi Murthy, K.G. Santhya, Shireen J. Jejeebhoy, Saswata Ghosh, Vijaya Nidadavolu, Nicole Haberland, Komal Saxena, M.A. Jose

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Although there is increasing interest in young people's sexual and reproductive health (SRH) situations and needs in India, married young people have received little attention as a vulnerable group with distinct needs because marriage is assumed to be safe and because married youth are assumed to face none of the stigma that their unmarried counterparts experience in accessing SRH services. However, emerging evidence shows that within this subpopulation, married young women and men constitute groups with distinct risks of HIV and other poor SRH outcomes. There remains a need to better understand their unique vulnerabilities and to design programs that …

Influencing Girls’ Lives: Acceptability And Effectiveness Of A Livelihoods Skill Building Intervention In Gujarat, Shveta Kalyanwala

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

There are 66 million adolescent females aged 13–19 in India. Their lives are characterized by limited education, lack of economic and social opportunities, early marriage and childbearing, and limited influence on decisions affecting their lives. Although programs in India have aimed to empower adolescent girls, they have largely focused on enhancing life skills and awareness. Programs to address women’s social and economic disadvantages have focused exclusively on adult women. To respond to the absence of programs devoted specifically to the social and economic empowerment of adolescent girls and young women, the Population Council partnered with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) …

Addressing The Sexual And Reproductive Health Needs Of Young People: Perspectives And Experiences Of Stakeholders From The Health And Non-Health Sectors, K.G. Santhya, Shireen J. Jejeebhoy, Saswata Ghosh, Nicole Haberland

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In India, recent policies have underscored the right of adolescents and youth to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) counseling and services. Despite recent policies and programs, little information is available on the extent to which policy recommendations and program strategies have been implemented, and the extent to which services serve the disparate needs of married and unmarried young women and men. Also, there is limited evidence about the extent to which health-care providers at different levels of service delivery and stakeholders from other sectors are involved in providing SRH and HIV/AIDS-related information and services to young people, or their perceptions …

Empowering Young Mothers In India: Results Of The First-Time Parents Project, K.G. Santhya, Nicole Haberland

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In India, sexual activity among girls and young women typically takes place within marriage. Nationally, as many as 30 percent of adolescent girls aged 15–19 are married, presumably sexually active, and under pressure to bear a first child early in the marriage. While sexual activity for the majority of adolescent Indian girls occurs within the socially sanctioned institution of marriage, marital sex is not inherently safe, voluntary, or pleasurable. Promoting Healthy, Safe, and Productive Transitions to Adulthood Brief No. 8 describes the Population Council’s efforts to support married adolescent girls. The Council, in partnership with the Child in Need Institute …

Influencing Girls' Lives: Acceptability And Effectiveness Of A Livelihoods Skill Building Intervention In Gujarat, Sewa, Sewa Academy, Shveta Kalyanwala, Rajib Acharya, Sunetra Deshpande

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a key Indian micro-finance nongovernmental organization, in partnership with the Population Council, undertook a pilot livelihoods skill-building program to support adolescent girls aged 13–19 years (mostly unmarried, in school and out of school). Like other such programs, this livelihoods program focused on exposing girls to new ideas, building social networks, exposing them to the world around them, and providing the technical skills needed to enhance their access to income generating opportunities. The study’s findings are mixed, but suggest that a life and livelihoods skill-building intervention program for girls is acceptable to adolescents (and their …

Integrating Adolescent Livelihood Activities Within A Reproductive Health Programme For Urban Slum Dwellers In India, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Although a wide variety of livelihood programs for adult women exist in India, they rarely include adolescent girls. Of those that do, few employ rigorous scientific methods to evaluate program impact. This brief describes a project conducted in slum areas of Allahabad, in Uttar Pradesh. The Population Council, in collaboration with CARE-India, tested the feasibility and impact of adding four livelihoods and life-skill components to a reproductive health program for adolescent girls (both school-going and out-of-school) aged 14–19. Using a quasi-experimental pre- and post-test design that contrasted the experimental group with a comparison group of adolescents, the project investigated whether …

Marriage And Motherhood: An Exploratory Study Of The Social And Reproductive Health Status Of Married Young Women In Gujarat And West Bengal, F. Ram, Ranjana Sinha, S.K. Mohanty, Arup Das, Aruna Lakhani, Nicole Haberland, K.G. Santhya

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In India, sexual activity and childbearing among young women take place overwhelmingly within the context of marriage. Despite the high prevalence of early marriage, little is known about the lives of married young women, and few interventions have focused on supporting this group. In response, the Population Council, in partnership with Child In Need Institute in Kolkata (West Bengal) and Deepak Charitable Trust in Vadodara (Gujarat), initiated the First-Time Parents project aimed at developing and testing an integrated package of health and social interventions that would improve married young women’s reproductive and sexual health knowledge and practices, and expand their …

Formation Of Partnerships Among Young Women And Men In Pune District, Maharashtra, Mallika Alexander, Laila Garda, Savita Kanade, Shireen J. Jejeebhoy, Bela Ganatra

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Young people in India face traditional age- and sex-stratified norms that espouse gender double standards. Premarital partnerships are taboo and anecdotal evidence suggests that in many settings in India, the hint of a romantic relationship or even social interaction between young girls and boys is sufficient to damage a family's reputation and/or result in accelerated arranged marriage, particularly for the girl. While there is a prevailing perception at the community level that in these circumstances, premarital partnerships are rare, there is a small body of literature that suggests that such partnerships are indeed formed and sexual relations experienced, among, typically, …

Spending, Saving And Borrowing: Perceptions And Experiences Of Girls In Gujarat, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Microfinance and savings programs that offer user-friendly and flexible savings schemes for women are increasingly being implemented in India, but such programs have been limited to adults. Although a number of programs have been implemented that aim to empower adolescent girls and young women, these have largely focused on enhancing life skills and awareness. The potential among young females to enhance control over resources through savings and use of other financial products in formal and informal banking institutions has rarely been addressed, either in research or through programs. As stated in this brief, the Council and the Self Employed Women's …

Meeting The Health And Social Needs Of Married Girls In India: The First Time Parents Project's Implementation And Reach, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

India has one of the largest populations of married adolescent girls in the world. Despite the high prevalence of early marriage and the distinct and predictable risks these girls and young women face, little is known about the lives of married young women, and little has been done to support them. In response, the Population Council, in partnership with Child in Need Institute and Deepak Charitable Trust, initiated the First-Time Parents project. This project developed and tested an integrated package of health and social interventions that would improve married young women's reproductive and sexual health knowledge and practices, and expand …

Formation Of Partnerships Among Young Women And Men In Pune District, Maharashtra, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Aside from their educational attainment, economic activity levels, and age at marriage, little is known about the lives of young people in India, especially the extent to which and the contexts in which they form romantic, marital, and other partnerships or the nature of these partnerships. At a time when India's youth policy and reproductive and child health programs have acknowledged the need to focus on youth, it is central that these gaps in understanding are filled. The KEM Hospital Research Centre and the Population Council conducted a study in Maharashtra in 2003–05 to obtain information on romantic and sexual …

Youth In India: Situation And Needs Study, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Youth aged 15–24 represent 20 percent of the Indian population. This cohort faces significant risks related to sexual and reproductive health (SRH), and many lack the knowledge and power to make informed SRH choices. Information on intimate partnerships among youth, female and male, married and unmarried, is sparse and evidence is practically nonexistent that identifies the factors that protect young people's ability to ensure safe SRH and their autonomy to make informed decisions. This brief describes a subnational study of young people's situation and needs that aims to fill these gaps. Six states were selected for study, representing different geographical …

'She Knew Only When The Garland Was Put Around Her Neck': Findings From An Exploratory Study On Early Marriage In Rajasthan, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In India, despite several policy and program efforts, early marriage persists with considerable variation between and within states. Unraveling the complex drivers of early marriage in particular contexts requires careful site-specific diagnostic research. Whether and how these downward pressures on age at marriage are ameliorated by India's national and state efforts to foster later marriage is not well understood. As noted in this brief, research is required at the community level to understand the extent of actual implementation of various policies and programs intended to prevent early marriage and the extent to which such efforts have found acceptability among parents …

Spending, Saving And Borrowing: Perceptions And Experiences Of Girls In Gujarat, Shveta Kalyanwala, Jennefer Sebstad

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Recognizing that a better understanding of the savings patterns and potential of adolescent girls and young women is an essential prerequisite for shaping the design of appropriate savings options and services for this group, SEWA, a leading micro-credit nongovernmental organization in India, in partnership with the Population Council, conducted research among adolescent girls and young women who held accounts in one or more of SEWA’s savings schemes. The study aimed to assess their access to money, their savings and spending behaviors, their experiences as holders of savings accounts, and their preferences with regard to savings products for the young. Findings …

She Knew Only When The Garland Was Put Around Her Neck': Findings From An Exploratory Study On Early Marriage In Rajasthan, K.G. Santhya, Nicole Haberland, Ajay Kumar Singh

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Population Council undertook an exploratory, qualitative study in two districts in Rajasthan, India to understand the extent of implementation of various policies and programs intended to prevent early marriage, and the extent to which such efforts have found acceptability among parents and the community. Findings show that adolescent girls had a clear desire to marry after the age of 18 and that they were well aware of what they would have to give up with marriage—their education, childhood, health, and opportunities to explore other interests. Some parents also noted these disadvantages of early marriage, suggesting that beliefs may be …

Women's Participation In Disaster Relief And Recovery, Ayse Yonder, Sengul Akcar, Prema Gopalan

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Too little attention has been given to the gender-differentiated effects of natural disasters, that is, women’s losses relative to men’s, how women’s work time and conditions change (both in terms of care-giving and income-generating work), or how disaster-related aid and entitlement programs include or marginalize affected women. The detailed case studies from three earthquake-stricken areas in India and Turkey that are contained in this issue of SEEDS help fill this information gap. They provide examples of how low-income women who have lost everything can form groups and become active participants in the relief and recovery process. Readers learn how women …

The Effect Of A Livelihoods Intervention In An Urban Slum In India: Do Vocational Counseling And Training Alter The Attitudes And Behavior Of Adolescent Girls?, Barbara Mensch, Monica J. Grant, Mary Philip Sebastian, Paul C. Hewett, Dale Huntington

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This Population Council working paper examines whether an experimental intervention for girls aged 14–19 that provided reproductive health information, vocational counseling and training, and assistance with opening savings accounts in slum areas of Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, India had an effect on their attitudes and behaviors. Although the livelihoods program was acceptable to parents and feasible to implement, the project had only a minimal impact on the behavior and attitudes of adolescent girls in the experimental slums. The greatest changes between the baseline and the endline surveys were found in those outcomes that most closely reflected the content of the …

Integrating Adolescent Livelihood Activities Within A Reproductive Health Programme For Urban Slum Dwellers In India, Mary Philip Sebastian, Monica J. Grant, Barbara Mensch

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This project, whose collaborators included CARE, the Centre for Operations Research and Training, and the Population Council, tested the impact of economic skills training among girls in a slum in Allahabad, India. Recognizing the relative disadvantage of adolescent girls, the study aimed to build an evidence base for adolescent livelihoods programs. Participating girls and their parents welcomed the program, and the baseline survey clearly indicated the appropriateness of an intervention that addresses the capabilities and opportunities available to adolescent girls—including both vocational training and savings schemes. However, few girls turned their new skills into economic gain, in part because of …

Popular Perceptions Of Emerging Influences On Mortality And Longevity In Bangladesh And West Bengal, Sajeda Amin, Alaka Malwade Basu

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Although new environmental and pathological threats to human survival and longevity have been documented, relatively little is known about how these threats are perceived in the popular imagination. During fieldwork in rural Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, researching the changing costs of and motivations for reproduction, the authors included survey questions on respondents’ perceptions of changing mortality. Child-mortality levels were perceived to have fallen drastically in recent times, but for the middle-aged and the elderly, the past was seen as a better time in terms of health and survival. The decline in adult health is attributed to environmental deterioration and …

Are We Not Peasants Too? Land Rights And Women's Claims In India, Bina Agarwal

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This edition of SEEDS explores the critical elements in securing effective and independent land rights for women in South Asia. The author presents a range of cooperative strategies for enabling women to retain and cultivate the land and shows how micro-credit and other programs can be redirected to increase the amount and productivity of land women control. Recognizing that new policies and political will are required to foster and sustain such experiments, the author ends with a summary of how women are organizing to place women’s access to land at the center of national and global agendas.

What About Us? Bringing Infertility Into Reproductive Health Care, Okonofua Friday, Bishakha Datta

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Infertility is a major reproductive health problem throughout much of the world. Despite the prevalence and seriousness of infertility, the population and reproductive health field has largely neglected this problem. National policies and international donor organizations have been one-sided in their focus on programs designed to prevent unwanted pregnancies. This issue of Quality/Calidad/Qualité, with clinic-based narratives and case reports from India and Nigeria, illustrates what is involved in trying to address the problem of infertility in developing countries. A possible framework for incorporating limited infertility care into a family planning or reproductive health program includes providing education and counseling, preliminary …

Some Preconditions For Fertility Decline In Bengal: History, Language Identity, And An Openness To Innovations, Alaka Malwade Basu, Sajeda Amin

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This paper argues that looking solely for the immediate causes of reproductive change may fail to take into account not only the impact of policies and programs but the societal decision to adopt these policies and programs to begin with. The paper examines the historical origins and spread of ‘modern’ ideas in Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal in India. It concludes that a colonial history in which education and modernization processes took hold very early among the elite in the larger Bengal region was paradoxically accompanied by a strong allegiance to the Bengali language. This strong sense of …

Wasteland Development And The Empowerment Of Women: The Sarthi Experience, Madhu Sarin

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This issue of SEEDS describes an innovative approach to rehabilitation of wastelands developed by Social Action for Rural and Tribal Inhabitants of India (SARTHI), a nongovernmental organization based in the Panchmahals District of Gujarat State in Western India. By assisting rural women to organize themselves around the rehabilitation of patches of degraded common land, SARTHI has been able to help them not only meet their needs for biomass in a more efficient and ecologically sound manner, but also to empower them to start asserting themselves in dealing with a broader range of problems. As primary gatherers and users of biomass, …

Aménagement Des Terres Incultes Et Émancipation Des Femmes L'Expérience De Sarthi, Madhu Sarin

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Ce numéro de SEEDS est consacré a une approche innovative ayant pour but d’aménager des terres incultes, développée par Action Sociale en faveur des population rurales et autochtones d’lnde (SARTHI), une organisation non gouvernementale basée dans le district de Panchmahals dans l’État de Gujarat en Inde occidentale. En aidant les femmes rurales à s’organiser pour mettre en valeur des lopins de terres communaux, SARTHI a permis à ces femmes de satisfaire leurs besoins en biomasse de façon plus efficace et saine d’'un point de vue écologique et d’améliorer d’autres aspects de leur vie. Étant donné que ce sont essentiellement les …

Le Forum Pour Les Femmes Actives: Lutte Pour Le Crédit Et Le Changement, Marty Chen

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Ce numéro de SEEDS retrace les différentes étapes qui ont mené à la création du Forum pour les Femmes à Madras, Inde et comment plus de 13,000 femmes pauvres ont pu, grâce à cette organisation, avoir accès au crédit. II décrit également comment le Forum a diversifié ses activités pour fournir à ses membres d'autres services, notamment dans le domaine de l'éducation, la santé, et la planification familiale et montre comment le fait de se sentir solidaires et reconnues permet à ses membres de mieux faire face aux problèmes politiques et sociaux qui affectent leur vie.

This issue of SEEDS …

The Working Women's Forum: Organizing For Credit And Change, Marty Chen

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This issue of SEEDs tells the story of how the Working Women's Forum came into being in Madras, India and how it has brought together more than 13,000 poor, urban women around the issue of credit. It also describes how the Forum has not only provided its members with access to funds, but has expanded to include support services such as child care, education, health, and family planning and how the sense of strength and purpose that has grown up among the members is helping them to tackle the political and social problems that affect their lives.