Examining Living Arrangements of Widows in India Using Core National Family Health Survey Data

Pushpanjali Swain, National Institute of Health and Family Welfare

Examining Living Arrangements of Widows in India using core national family health survey data This paper is based on the raw data files of National Family Health Survey (NFHS) conducted throughout India during 1998-99, the 2nd survey in the series. . The survey covered 92486 sample households having a total population of 518703 individuals. Among them 24155 individual widowed constitute 5.7 percent of the total sample population (males 2.5 percent and females 9 percent). The main objective is to examine the pattern of living arrangements of widows with focus on selected characteristics (age, family composition, education and type of residence and standard of living index) in relation to household headship and the extents to widows are co residing with their family members. When a woman’s marriage is disrupted with the death of her husband, she must make some decision about where to live. A basic component of residential choice is the decision whether to live alone as head of the household, to move in with children or share the household with other relatives. Among the surveyed household where widows reside, 35 percent of the households are headed by widows and 51 percent are living with the children. Only 2.5 percent of widows are living as sisters and 2.5 percent as daughters in the families (close) and 5.7 percent are living with other relatives (distant). Among the households where widow resides, approx. 18 percent widows live alone. In general widows live in secluded place unlike other members in the family. The mean household size where widows reside is only 4.19, which suggest that widows basically live in nuclear families. Upon widowhood, most widows particularly in rural India are subject to social isolation and related deprivation. They are subject to restrictions about how and where they live, inheritance, remarriage, employment and the kind of social support they can receive from relatives and the community. Among the widowed household surveyed, 28 percent of households have only single widow as adult member and 21 percent of households have only two adult members (at least one is widow) and half of them are living with three or more adults. Proportion of widows in each age group increases, as the widows grow older. Around 3 percent of widows are below 30 years. Nearly 77 percent of widows are over 50 years of age. In three-fourth of households, there are no children age 5 and under. And 15 percent households have one child of age less than 5 years. One third of widows live in urban areas and the remaining live in rural areas. The other socio-economic characteristics such as religion and standard of living index of widows are described. Among the widows 81 percent belongs to Hindu religion and 12 percent from Muslim. Four fifth of widows are illiterate and 13 percent have education up to primary level 7 percent have education up to secondary level. Standard of living index (SLI), a composite index is calculated by adding scores of various indicators e.g., house type, toilet facility, source of lighting, main fuel for cooking, source of drinking water, separate room for cooking, ownership of house, ownership of agricultural land, ownership of irrigated land, ownership of live stock and ownership of durable goods. Index score 0-14 for low SLI, 15-24 for medium SLI and 25-67 for high SLI. Close to 50 percent of widows are living in low SLI households, 38 percent are in middle SLI and the remaining proportion are living in high SLI households. The paper includes discussions of living arrangement of widows cross-sectionally and selected health disparity among them.