Chennai
The state ranked third with Kerala topping the list and Karnataka occupying the second slot. The State, which had a total of 2.59 million female-headed households, also ranked third in terms of absolute numbers while there were about 27 million female-households in the country.
The other criteria by which the states were ranked was single-member female-headed households, and the state ranked third in this category as well, amounting to 26.1 per cent of households of the 2.59 million women headed-households in India. The national average was 18.3 per cent.
“Education and employment leads to women’s empowerment which makes her independent, and the women decide to live alone. The literacy rate is high in Tamil Nadu, on a comparative note, which could be another reason,” advocate Sudha Ramalingam told DTNext, sharing her thoughts about the data.
Poet Salma who had similar thoughts on women’s empowerment, says that the number of widows and divorcees figuring in the list should be a cause for concern. Salma, who is also the deputy secretary of the DMK women’s wing, attributed the positive effects to the rule of the Dravidian parties’ regimes which had rolled out number of schemes to empower women.
“High literacy rate and financial independence are two major factors empowering young women. Women are losing faith in the institution of marriage as they witness lots of abuse against married women by the groom’s family.”
She said the State also ranked second in the number of divorces, irrespective of the fact whether it was an arranged marriage or not. Overall, the fact that women could run the family and impact the society was a positive sign”, she said.
On the flip side, Salma blamed alcoholism as a social plague which was a pointer to the growing number of widows in the State.
According to the TNHD report, the women head the households due to broad range of domestic situations _ absence of a resident male head, viz., widowhood, divorce, separation and desertion.
Migration of male members for long periods, loss of economic function by resident males due to severe unemployment, disability, illness and male reluctance to accept jobs seen as status reducing, households with no mature sons, and sons residing in independent nuclear units were the other reasons for women heading households. The first copy of the report was received by the Finance Minister D Jayakumar from the Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisamy recently.
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