India stays conservative on gender roles, says Pew Research survey

While views appear to have become somewhat progressive, the scales remain tilted in favour of men

Indians believe women make better political leaders and share an egalitarian vision of women’s place in society, but an overwhelming majority agrees that when there are few jobs available, men should have more rights to a job than women. These are the findings of the latest Pew Research Centre survey of nearly 30,000 adults throughout India interviewed on gender roles in families and societies. The survey was conducted between late 2019 and early 2020 (mostly before the Covid-19 pandemic).

Overall, there appears to be a more progressive view of the role of women in society. Indians value having both sons and daughters: Nearly all Indians say it is very important for a family to have at least one son (94 per cent) and, separately, to have at least one daughter (90 per cent). And most Indians say that both sons and daughters should have equal rights to inheritance from parents (64 per cent) and have the responsibility to care for parents as they age (58 per cent). But while about four in ten Indian adults say that sons should have the primary responsibility to care for aging parents, just 2 per cent say the same about daughters.

Most Indians (63 per cent) see sons — not daughters — as being primarily responsible for parents’ last rites and burial rituals. Religious funeral practices for loved ones are widely seen as very important, and at least according to Hindu tradition, sons must perform last rites for a parent to ensure freedom for the soul in the afterlife. Recently, women — including actor Mandira Bedi and the daughters of India’s former Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Bipin Rawat — have publicly challenged these norms by lighting funeral pyres.

Eight in ten people surveyed — including 81 per cent of Hindus and 76 per cent of Muslims — say it is very important for women to have the same rights as men. And gender roles at home are viewed progressively. For instance, 62 per cent of adults say both men and women should be responsible for taking care of children. But traditional gender norms still hold sway among large segments of the population: Roughly a third of adults (34 per cent) feel that child care should be handled primarily by women. Similarly, a slim majority (54 per cent) says that both men and women in families should be responsible for earning money, but many Indians (43 per cent) see this as mainly the obligation of men. And Indian adults overwhelmingly say that when jobs are in short supply, men should have greater rights to employment than women, reflecting the continued prominence of men in the economic sphere.

Yet, in domestic settings, Indians tend to say men should have more prominent roles than women. About nine in ten Indians agree with the notion that a wife must always obey her husband, including nearly two-thirds who completely agree with this sentiment. Indian women are only slightly less likely than Indian men to say they completely agree that wives should always obey their husbands (61 per cent versus 67 per cent), according to the survey.

 

Many Indians see sex-selective abortion as acceptable in at least some circumstances: 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 to connote sex-selective abortion. A similar share (42 per cent) says balancing the number of girls and boys in a family via modern methods is completely unacceptable, while roughly one in ten describe the practice as “somewhat” unacceptable.

The survey reveals that while the number of people — men and women alike — who see discrimination on the basis of sex is small, a very large section believes violence against women is the major national issue. About half of Indian adults (51 per cent) say it is more important to teach boys to “respect all women” than to teach girls to “behave appropriately”. But roughly a quarter of Indians (26 per cent) take the opposite position, effectively placing the onus for violence against women on women themselves. Police cases registered as “crimes against women” nearly doubled between 2010 and 2019, and rapes and murders of women have led to massive protests across the country.

The survey covers regional variations on gender and finds that Sikhs are more likely to take a progressive view of wom­en’s role at home. For example, while 34 per cent of Indian Hindus overall say women should be primarily responsible for taking care of children, just 13 per cent of Punjabi Hindus say this — similar to the 14 per cent of Sikhs least likely to hold a variety of traditional views toward gender. Contrary to general belief, South Indian attitudes toward gender roles are not necessarily more egalitarian. While Indians in the South are less likely than those in the Hindi belt to say, for example, that a wife must always obey her husband (75 per cent versus 94 per cent), southern adults are more likely to say that men in families should be responsible for making decisions about expenses (25 per cent versus 13 per cent) and that women should be primarily responsible for taking care of children (44 per cent versus 30 per cent).