The country I am interested in studying during this course is India. India is located in South Asia and has a total population of over 1.3 billion. According to the Indian Census about 497 million women make up for the population and 31.6% of the population live in urban areas. The annual growth rate of the population is 1% and there is a 66.2% of life expectancy rate.
About 32.7% of people in India are living below the international poverty line which means about 32% of people are making below $1.25 and living below that dollar rate. The adult literacy rate is at about 67%. Around 74% of women in attending one visit at the doctors, receive medical professional care during their pregnancy. The maternal mortality ratio for women is 210, in other words, every year at a rate of 210 women die from pregnancy-related causes.
The female youth literacy rate is around 74% and the male youth literacy rate is about 88%, from this we can conclude that males seem to be more educated than the females. I find youth literacy surprising because the adult literacy rate is low compared to the youth literacy rate. I’m guessing as children get older they either drop out or don’t have all the resources to get a quality education. However, the primary school participation net enrollment ratio percentage for males is 98.8% and the females are at 98.5%. The net enrollment refers to children who belong to the age group in primary school education. We can conclude that although the male youth literacy rate is higher than youth females, the females for primary school are not that far from the males.
In 2012, the under-5 mortality rate is at 56 compared to 2000 when it was at 92. From that, we can see the mortality rate has decreased significantly and there is a higher chance that children from the time they are born to five years old will live longer compared to 2000s rate. In 2012, the total fertility rate is at 2.5, this means for every woman would bear around 2 children if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years. Compared to 1990, which the total fertility rate was at 3.9 we can see that it has decreased. So women are having fewer children. I also wonder if the Indian government decided to put a cap on how many children can conceive per family, similar to what China did due to it almost being overcrowded.
Comparing rural and urban areas of India, urban areas seem to have advantages over the rural areas. For instance, in urban areas, they have about a 76% rate of a skilled medical professional in attendance for delivering childbirths whereas in rural India they have a 43% rate for a medical professional during birth. In underweight prevalence in children under 5 urban areas are at 35% while rural areas are at 45%. I find this to be interesting because I would expect urban areas to have a lower percentage and rural areas to have a higher percentage due to lack of education and resources. Lastly, urban areas have a higher percentage of improved sanitation (60%) and rural areas improved sanitation at 24%.
Furthermore, the richest households have a significant advantage over poorest households when it comes to knowledge of HIV, underweight of children under 5, and medical professionals at birth. When comparing the richest households to poorest households when medical professionals are present during childbirth, richer households have a higher percentage of medical professionals being present than poorer households. Children who are under 5 and are underweight in poor households have a rate of 56% percent while richer households are around 19%. I find this to be interesting because I would expect the richer households to have an even much lower rate. When it comes to richer households receiving knowledge about HIV, they have a higher rate of knowledge compared to poorer households.
Sources:
https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/india_statistics.html
Vora, K. S., Mavalankar, D. V., Ramani, K. V., Upadhyaya, M., Sharma, B., Iyengar, S., … Iyengar, K. (2009). Maternal health situation in India: a case study. Journal of health, population, and nutrition, 27(2), 184–201. doi:10.3329/jhpn.v27i2.3363
https://www.nhp.gov.in/healthlyliving/women-s-health
http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/in
http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_And_You/gender_composition.aspx