EMBARGOED UNTIL: 12:01 A.M. EST, FEBRUARY 11, 1999 (THURSDAY)
Public Information Office CB99-26
301-457-3030/301-457-3670 (fax)
301-457-1037 (TDD)
e-mail: pio@census.gov
Victoria Velkoff
301-457-1371
Women's Health and Education in India Profiled in
New Reports from the Census Bureau
The fertility rate in India declined to 3.4 children per woman in
1992-93, down from 4.7 in 1980. However, illiteracy remained a serious
problem more than 200 million Indian women were illiterate in 1991,
according to two new reports released today from the Commerce Department's
Census Bureau. The two reports are entitled Women's Health In India and
Women's Education In India.
"Many factors impact a woman's health, including her educational level,"
said Victoria Velkoff, author of both reports.
Other highlights from the reports include:
More than 100,000 Indian women die each year from pregnancy-related
causes. UNICEF estimated that the maternal mortality ratio in India
was 453 deaths per 100,000 births in 1993. The leading factor
contributing to high maternal mortality is the lack of access to
health care.
The most recent National Family Health Survey, 1992-93, found that
in the four years preceding the survey, 37 percent of all pregnant
women in India received no prenatal care during their pregnancies.
Census data show that in 1971, only 22 percent of women and 46
percent of men were literate. By 1991, 39 percent of women and 64
percent of men could read and write.
Forty-one percent of the literate population, including only 13
percent of Indian women, had more than a primary education, according
to the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, 1993. Poor
families are likely to keep girls at home to care for younger
siblings or to work in family enterprises.
The reports are part of the Census Bureau's Women of the World series,
which focuses on social and economic gender issues in different countries
of the world. Research for the profiles was funded by the U.S. Agency for
International Development's Office of Women in Development. The third
profile in the series, Women and the Economy of India, will be available
in a few months.
-X-
The U.S. Census Bureau, pre-eminent collector and disseminator of timely,
relevant and quality data about the people and the economy of the United
States, conducts a population and housing census every 10 years, an
economic census every five years and more than 100 demographic and
economic surveys every year, all of them evolving from the first census in
1790.
