Gender norms, educational status threaten to curb teenage girls'aspirations

Yet, as more girls strive for better opportunities, they are challenged by lagging gender parity and the inability to complete secondary education.

Every fifth teenage Indian girl is currently not studying, dropouts increase with an increase in age, nearly every second teenage Indian girl believes boys have better opportunities to pursue education and work, and only one in five believes that boys can do as much household work as themselves.

These are some of the findings of a new survey report, the Teen Age Girls report (or the TAG report), released by Nanhi Kali, a project by the Naandi Foundation, which works with adolescent girls.

Even as the aspirations of teenage girls soar--seven in 10 teenage Indian girls want to finish graduation, three in four have a specific career path in mind, and nearly three in four do not want to marry before the age of 21, as we reported in the first part of this series--their current status in society and at home has not significantly changed and most struggle with a variety of what the survey calls "new age skills", such as travelling alone, using a smartphone, typing out a document on a computer in English and asking for directions.

The survey asked girls aged 13-19 years questions on nine topics including educational and health status, basic life skills, agency and empowerment within and outside the home and aspirations.

In the second of this three-part series, we explore how their educational status, attitudes on empowerment and gender norms and new age skills play out against these aspirations. This is significant, at a time when 63.2 million of them are set to be first-time voters in 2019. The third part explains how their access to healthcare and sanitation is crucial in a country where every second teenage girl is anaemic.

1 in 5 teenage Indian girls not currently studying, dropouts increase with age

Teenage girls make up 6.6% (80 million) of India’s populace--equivalent to the population of Turkey--and education helps them find employment, achieve aspirations, be healthier and reduce poverty.

Yet, as more girls strive for better opportunities, they are challenged by lagging gender parity and the inability to complete secondary education... Read More

Business Standard