 "4 of 5 organ recipients in India are men; 93% are living donors: Study")
For every one woman who received an organ in India, four men got transplants in the country, owing to economic and financial responsibilities and societal pressures.
According to a report in The Times of India (TOI), data shows that from 1995 to 2021, 36,640 transplantations were carried out in the country, of which over 29,000 were for men and 6,945 were for women.
Anil Kumar, director of the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), said that more men are cadaver donors, but more women are living donors. "Of the total organ donations in the country, 93 per cent were living donors. This, by itself, is a statement that many organ donors in the country are women donors."
A paper published in the Experimental and Clinical Transplantation Journal in 2021 analysed organ transplants in 2019. The study showed that 80 per cent of the living organ donors are women, mainly the wife or the mother, while 80 per cent of the recipients are men.
The study also showed that the reason behind more women donors is primarily socio-economic pressure.
Mayuri Barve, an organ transplant coordinator from DY Patil Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre in Pune, said that in the last 15 years that she has been working, only once did a husbanorhd come forward to donate his organ to his wife.
She said mothers and fathers are donors to their children, but when both are unavailable, wives come forward. She added, "If the recipient is a man and the breadwinner, then the wife or the parents feel the responsibility of donating the organ. Women who are recipients feel guilty if their family members have to donate their organs and they refuse to take them from their families."
She further added that "cultural upbringing wherein a woman is taught to take care of her family is the cause" behind more women being donors, while more men being recipients.