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While there are a growing number of interventions and evaluations of programmes aimed at changing gender norms and violence against women and girls, there remains a dearth of documentation outlining the challenges faced in conducting these interventions and evaluations, particularly in traditional and low literacy settings. The Do Kadam Barabari Ki Ore (Two Steps Towards Equality) programme sought to understand what works to prevent violence against women and girls in Bihar, India. This paper draws insights from process evaluation data. It describes promising features and challenges of implementation, and characteristics which weaken the potential effects of complex, community based, social sector programmes that aim to change deeply entrenched gender power hierarchies. We drew on the Medical Research Council framework for process evaluation in analysing our process evaluation data, and focus on mechanisms of impact, and factors inhibiting programme success, including contextual and implementation challenges. The paper also outlines measures that may help overcome observed challenges and areas that require modifications and/or further investigation. The programme experienced several challenges. These included contextual issues, such as the lack of leadership skills of those delivering the intervention and the gap between expected responsibilities and activities of government platforms and reality. Implementation challenges were encountered in reaching men and boys, younger women and the community at large and ensuring their regular attendance; and in maintaining the fidelity of the intervention activities. Our insights call for an evidence-supported dialogue on these challenges and how best to anticipate and address them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studied the perception and mindset of the children belonging to family businesses. The aim was to explore their intention to join their existing family business and also examine the major factors that influence their decision. The paper analyzes the potential impact of a set of demographic variables such as age, gender, and other background factors, including level of education. The study was conducted on respondents from the northern part of India. Themajor findings imply that factors such as career interest, pressure fromparents, self-esteem, independent attitude, attitude towardwork, attitude toward risk, leadership qualities, and teamspirit all influence the offspring's intent to join the family enterprise or not. Further, the findings also demonstrated that demographic variables such as level of education and gender have an impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, nurses and midwives are key to the provision of public sexual and reproductive health services. Research on impediments to their performance has primarily focused on their individual capability and systemic resource constraints. Despite emerging evidence on gender-based discrimination and low professional acceptance faced by these cadres, little has been done to link these constraints to power asymmetries within the health system. We analysed data from an ethnography conducted in two primary healthcare facilities in an eastern state in India, using Veneklasen and Miller's expressions of power framework, to explore how power and gender asymmetries constrain performance and quality of care provided by Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs). We find that ANMs' low position within the official hierarchy allows managers and doctors to exercise "power over" them, severely curtailing their expression of all other forms of power. Disempowerment of ANMs occurs at multiple levels in interlinked and interdependent ways. Our findings contribute to the empirical evidence, advancing the understanding of gender as a structurally embedded dimension of power. We illustrate how the weak positioning of ANMs reflects their lack of representation in policymaking positions, a virtual absence of gender-sensitive policies, and ultimately organisational power structures embedded in patriarchy. By deepening the understanding of empowerment, the paper suggests implementable pathways to empower ANMs for improved performance. This requires addressing entrenched gender inequities through structural and organisational changes that realign power relations, facilitate more collaborative ways of exercising power, and create the antecedents to individual empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an analysis of micro-data for India that shows a high correlation in infant mortality among siblings. In 13 of 15 states, we identify a causal effect of infant death on the risk of infant death of the subsequent sibling (a scarring effect), after controlling for mother-level heterogeneity. The scarring effects are large, the only other covariate with a similarly large effect being mother's (secondary or higher) education. The two states in which evidence of scarring is weak are Punjab, the richest, and Kerala, the socially most progressive. The size of the scarring effect depends upon the sex of the previous child in three states, in a direction consistent with son-preference. Evidence of scarring implies that policies targeted at reducing infant mortality will have social multiplier effects by helping avoid the death of subsequent siblings. Comparison of other covariate effects across the states offers some interesting new insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In rural and low-income urban households, energy is 'women's business': women are responsible for providing energy, and use it for domestic chores and productive activities. However, the poor quality fuels many women use contribute to their time poverty, ill health, and level of drudgery. Despite these negative impacts, energy policy remains gender-blind. This can be attributed to the invisibility of women's needs to energy planners, stemming from a lack of appropriate gender-analysis tools to meet the particular data requirements of the energy sector. This article analyses why standard gender tools do not provide appropriate gender-disaggregated energy data, and describes a set of tools that have been developed for that purpose. The paper concludes with an evaluation of recent experiences testing the tools in Pakistan, India, and Nepal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, gender inequalities have deleterious effects on reproductive health outcomes among women and girls. This study used an interactive storytelling game as a qualitative data collection approach to learn about adolescents' experiences and societal norms regarding gender. Eight sessions were conducted with a total of 30 girls and 10 boys (ages 15–17). Participants created characters, themes, and locations for the stories and shared experiences about gender through their characters. Sessions were recorded, transcribed, translated, and analysed for emergent themes. Themes included: interest in and prevalence of romantic relationships among adolescents, stigma associated with adolescent relationships and its influence on individual norms, and girls' experiences of harassment. Findings suggest that the use of a qualitative storytelling game is one way to understand the experiences of adolescents around sensitive issues such as gender. They also suggest a need for interventions focused on improving gender attitudes among adolescents, fostering parent–child communication, and strengthening the policy response to girls' harassment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender-equitable attitudes are often constructed during adolescence making this a critical time to alter gender perceptions. However, there is little research on gender attitudes and gender equity in early adolescence, especially in India. This study is a cross-sectional sample of 1,691 participants 8–18 years from three Northern India states. Surveys were collected on mobile tablets and assessed gender perceptions and attitudes. Gender-equitable scores were categorized into low, medium and high. Gender-equitable attitudes and gender vary by grade (p <.001). Gender-equitable attitudes improved with grade, but boys were 46% less likely to be in the moderate category compared to the low category as grade increased (p <.01). Compared to girls, boys were 56% less likely to be in the high category compared to the low category as grade increased (p <.001). Early adolescence is a unique opportunity to address gender attitudes before they become more solidified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greater 'empowerment' of women in India, measured by their education and autonomy, is associated with a reduction in the extent to which their sons' educational attainment exceeds that of their daughters. Improving both father's and mother's education increases the educational attainment of daughters more than that of sons, but raising mother's education is associated with a significantly greater reduction of the difference in attainment between sons and daughters. In families in which the mother has completed primary education, the average difference between boys and girls in years spent in school is almost a third of a year lower than it is where the mother has less education. A one-standard-deviation increase in mother's autonomy is associated with an increase in daughter's schooling of more than half a month but has no correlation with son's education. The findings highlight the importance of women's empowerment for the intergenerational transfer of equality in educational attainment of the sexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dramatic reductions in trade barriers during the past 10 years have caused unprecedented economic growth in India. Little is known about the impact of globalisation on the informal labour market, especially the impact on women. We interviewed women working in four occupations in Mumbai's informal labour market, gathering information about their daily lives, job responsibilities, and how the circumstances of their jobs have changed over the last 5 years. We construct a typical day in the lives of these women, discuss similarities and differences in the issues they face, and consider the policy implications of our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most policy makers and practitioners have now started to recognise the different ways in which climate change impacts on poor, vulnerable, and socially excluded women and men. However, making adaptation policies and programmes sensitive to gender issues does not simply mean 'adding on' a concern for women. It also requires a nuanced understanding of gendered forms of vulnerability, and a stronger commitment of resources - financial, technical, and human - to address specific gendered priorities. Drawing on insights from coastal Gujarat, in India, this article illustrates how researchers and practitioners can collaborate to strengthen learning across communities and regions. Simple and practical tools for assessing vulnerability, as well as empirical research and documentation, can further and support advocacy on climate-resilient development policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Participatory research with a Rajasthani (India) drinking water supply project indicates that women's participation has generated an ongoing struggle inside the implementing nongovernmental organization (NGO) and in villages. A Bakhtinian analysis of the project's women's participation program can illuminate the micropolitics of dialogic struggles surrounding women's participation and its related spaces. Bakhtin's concepts of utterance, dialogic process, and chronotope offer geographers a framework for analyzing the constant, simultaneous production of meaning and space. A Bakhtinian analysis of NGO fieldworkers' speech accesses the micropolitics within social relations, which construct gendered spaces. Gendered participatory approaches need reevaluation because dialogues about women's participation extend the scope of that participation beyond what is intended by development policymakers and practitioners. As part of their work, fieldworkers simultaneously are influenced by and contribute to shifting spaces of gendered domination, flexible meanings of women's participation, and newly audible voices. Verbal struggles over gendered spaces lead to new meanings of women's participation. These new meanings in turn expand the influence of women's participation as a platform for sociospatial change. Gendered gains may be temporary and incremental, but where before there was little precedent or feeling for women's participation within the drinking water supply project, over time women's participation became linked to all project goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her job as Gender and HIV Adviser for UNAIDS/UNIFEM, the author came across a movement of sex workers who are successfully negotiating safe sex in the heart of Calcutta, India. This article relates an inspiring discovery for those development professionals who are searching for ways to empower women to protect themselves, their partners, and families from HIV infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

​Background: Globally, disabled people have significant unmet needs in relation to sexual and reproductive health (SRH). Disabled women in India face multiple discrimination: social exclusion, lack of autonomy with regard to their SRH, vulnerability to violence, and lack of access to SRH care. While they may face shared challenges, an intersectional perspective suggests that considering disabled women as a uniform and ‘vulnerable’ group is likely to mask multiple differences in their lived experiences. Objective: To explore commonality and heterogeneity in the experiences of disabled women in relation to their SRH needs and rights in Gujarat State, India. Methods: We conducted 22 in-depth qualitative interviews with women between the ages of 18 and 49 with any form of self-identified disability. Intersectionality was used as a lens for analysis and in sampling. Results: Findings explore the experiences of disabled women in a number of different spheres related to decision making and SRH service use. Conclusions: Recognising heterogeneity is critical to inform rights-based approaches to promote SRH and rights for all disabled women. This suggests a need to encourage strategic alliances between social movements for gender equity and SRH and disability rights, in which common interests and agendas can be pursued whilst recognising and respecting differences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]