Bleeding at the margins: Understanding period poverty among SC and ST women using decomposition analysis

Babbar, Karan, Vandana, - and Arora, Ashu (2023) Bleeding at the margins: Understanding period poverty among SC and ST women using decomposition analysis. The Journal of Development Studies, 60 (1). pp. 131-146. ISSN 1743-9140

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Abstract

Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) women in India have relatively lower usage of period products than women of the General category. This paper attempts to understand and uncover the social factors explaining inequalities in the period product usage among these groups. This paper uses data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), conducted in 2019–21, for this study, with a sample of 49,136 SC, 44,392 ST, and 41,045 General caste women in the age group of 15 to 24 years. Using the Fairlie decomposition method, we explain the inequalities in the period product usage between SC, ST, and general categories. Differences in wealth index (SC-Gen: 49.54%; ST-Gen: 46.6%), respondent’s education level (SC-Gen: 22.85%; ST-Gen: 17.3%), watching television (SC-Gen: 09.44%; ST-Gen: 10.1%), reading newspaper (SC-Gen: 08.71%; ST-Gen: 05.09%), and toilet facility (SC-Gen: 06.36%; ST-Gen: 03.05%) account for a large portion of the gap in the period product usage among these groups. Government, policymakers, and NGOs should focus on creating comprehensive menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) programmes, including educational programmes and mass media campaigns, while increasing focus on disadvantaged communities, viz. SCs and STs to make the necessary nudge for girls and women to adopt hygienic menstrual practices.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: Menstruation | Menstrual Health | And Hygiene | Decomposition Analysis | Inequality | National Family Health Survey | NFHS-5
Subjects: Social Sciences and humanities > Social Sciences > Social Sciences (General)
JGU School/Centre: Jindal Global Business School
Depositing User: Amees Mohammad
Date Deposited: 09 Sep 2023 12:18
Last Modified: 30 Jan 2024 07:26
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2023.2252139
URI: https://pure.jgu.edu.in/id/eprint/6615

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