Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan are the worst states in India for Indian women, based on social indicators and demographic data. This is according to data published in the Sample Registration Survey 2014—released in June 2016—and the National Crime Records Bureau, reports IndiaSpend.
The data reveals that these states have low literacy rates, high incidents of child marriage and female foeticide and infanticide. All these conditions are leading to lower sex ratio, high maternal mortality rate, high number of recorded crimes against women, and lower employment opportunities.
Even on other parameters like average household size, average reproductive spans and sex ratio, UP, Rajasthan and Bihar are performing poorly. Improving women equality and promoting women empowerment would require these states to better their education and literacy levels.
Mean age of females at marriage
Women in West Bengal marry youngest (19.3 years), followed by UP and Rajasthan (19.4 years for both).
UP has the largest number of girls married between 10-19 years (2.1 million) in India, followed by West Bengal (1.3 million) and Bihar (1.25 million). One in four women in Rajasthan marry before the legal age of 18.
Maternal mortality rate (MMR)
This is the number of women who die from pregnancy-related causes, while pregnant or within 42 days of terminating a pregnancy for every 100,000 live births.
At 27.8, UP has the highest MMR among all Indian states, followed by Rajasthan (23.9) and Bihar/Jharkhand (21.4).
Crimes against women
As many as 38,467 crimes against women were registered in UP–one every 15 minutes–followed by West Bengal (38,299) and Rajasthan (31,151).
However, when it comes to crime rate–crimes per 100,000 population of women–Delhi has the highest rate (169.6), followed by Assam (123.4) and Rajasthan (91.4).
UP has a crime rate of 38.4, while Bihar's rate is 31.3.
Female work-force participation rates
Bihar has the lowest female work-force participation rate (FWPR), with only 90 per 1,000 women employed. UP has a FWPR of 253 while Rajasthan has a rate of 453, higher than UP, Bihar and the national average of 331.
