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Women’s Land Ownership and Its Impact on Spousal Violence and Sexual Decision Making Behaviour: Investigating Inequalities and Transformations in India

Charu Jain, National Council of Applied Economic Research, India
Ruchi Jain, National Council of Applied Economic Research, India

Violence against women – particularly intimate partner violence and sexual violence – is a major public health problem. Research gives evidences that in addition to education and financial independence, particularly in low-income economies, secure land rights can increase woman’s economic independence, and reduces her vulnerability to gender based violence. Based on two rounds of NHFS data 2005-06 and 2015-16 for India, this paper examines the structural inequalities and transformations in the pattern of women’s land/property ownership and empirically measuring its impact on spousal violence, decision making power, sexual decision making behaviours and changes in the perceptions of being in abusive relationship. It is expected that the findings will bring useful insights about gender differences in property ownership patterns in India and to what extent it can help in reducing the risk of violent behaviours towards women, giving them decision making power and transforming their perceptions about being in abusive relationship.

Keywords: Gender, Inequality, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Spatial statistics

See extended abstract.

  Presented in Session P21.