English daily published in Bengaluru & Doha
Women better educated, neo-natal mortality declines, says NFHS
By M.A. Siraj
Karnataka has been a pioneer among India’s states in addressing the vital need to go into human development. Though Madhya Pradesh stole a lead in coming out with the first Human Development Report in 1995, Karnataka followed soon enough and became the second state to publish the Karnataka Human Development Report in 1999. The second such report for the State was published in 2005. Other states followed these two states. A look at the vital indices of family health in the state in the just published NHFS-5 would help assess the progress made by the State in terms of access to education, health services and in terms of empowerment of women.
First, let us take a look at the areas where success has been spectacular. Sex ratio, i.e., females per 1,000 males rose from 939 in NFHS-4 to 1,034 in NFHS-5. However, a more realistic assessment would be to look at the sex ratio at birth for kids born in the last five years. According to the report, this went up from 910 to 978. Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has plummeted from 1.8 to 1.7 during the two surveys. Women aged 15-19 years who were already mothers or pregnant at the time of the survey came down from 7.8% to 5.4%. The State is reaching the pinnacle in matters of registering the birth with civil authority as it has risen to 97.5%. It stood at around 95% during the NFHS-4. General literacy among men stands at 85% while those among women at 73.4%. Women with 10 or more years of schooling went up from 45.5% to 50.2%. The progress among men on this score was marginal, from 55.2% to 56.5%. Female population who ever attended school, climbed up from 70 to 73%. A little over 17% of children below 5 years were attending pre-primary schools. This data was not collected during the NFHS-4.
Karnataka is heading towards universal institutional coverage of deliveries. The survey says 97% deliveries happened in hospitals and nursing homes, which is an improvement from 94% in the last survey. The births in public-run facilities went up from 61% to almost 65%. Home births that were conducted with the help of skilled health personnel have come down from 3.1% to 1.6%. But rising c-section births— from 23.6% to 31.5%—should be a cause for concern. The rise has been larger in private health facilities from 40.3% to 52.5%.
It could be gleaned that better health conditions are in sync with better living conditions. Over 99% households (HHs) reported power connections; HHs that use an improved sanitation facility rose from 57.8% to 74.8%; those using clean fuel grew from 54.7% to 79.7%. Women who ever used the internet rose to 35% while this was 62.4% for men. (NFHS-4 data was not available on this.) Participation of currently married women who usually participate in three key domestic decisions—about healthcare for herself, major household purchase, and visit to her family or relatives—marginally improved from 82.7% from 80.4%. Women operating bank or savings accounts rose from 59% to nearly 89%. Women having a mobile phone that they use for themselves, rose from 47% to 61.8%. Women aged 15-24 year who use hygienic methods of protection during their menstrual period rose from 70.3% to 84.2%.
Infant mortality rate declined from 26.9 to 25.4 while that for under-5 groups dipped from 31.5 to 29.5. Following the national pattern, female sterilisation went up from 48.6% to 57.4%. Male sterilisation came to a total naught from 0.1% during the last survey thereby denoting this to be totally women-centric. Use of contraceptive pills went from 0.4% to 2.1%; use of condom went up from 1.3% to 4.1%; and, injectables went up from 0% to 0.5%.
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