Snakes and Ladders - ERU Consultants Pvt. Ltd.

stable, Uttar Pradesh continues to have lower female life expectancy than that of males raising
important and recurring questions about the persistence of gender biases and disparities and how
best to address them through policy interventions. Infant mortality ranging between 83 in Uttar
Pradesh and 57 in Karnataka also suggests that there is scope for significant decline and points to
a need for improvement in deliveries by trained personnel and universalisation of immunization.
The National Family Health Survey of 1998-99 indicates a very dismal performance in Uttar
Pradesh, where only 21 per cent of children aged 12-23 months had received all childhood
vaccinations. There has also been a decline in the percentage of children weighing over 2500
grams – it declines from 60.4 (Rural) and 61.99 (Urban) in 1992-93 to 56.89 (Rural) and 61.03
(Urban).
Table 8: Proportion of 1 year olds fully immunised, by Social Group
Per cent SC ST OBC General Missing Total
NFHS-1 (1992-93) 28.26 26.00 39.69 - 36.92
NFHS-2 (1998-99) 41.93 28.28 45.72 49.74 47.05 37.70
Source: L Bhandari: Empirical Analysis of Integrated Child Development, 2003
On the literacy front, between 1991 and 2001, all regions of the country have showed tremendous
progress. However, the gender gap continues to mar the overall performance. It is heartening that
among the young aged 6-10 years in primary cycle of education, the gender gap is virtually non-
existent in Karnataka, very low in Andhra Pradesh while there is a gap of 10 percentage points in
Uttar Pradesh. Among the older children aged 11-14, who would be at secondary level, the
gender gap in the case of both Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh is significant and comparable to
the all-India situation. The persistence of gender gap also indicates the possibility that a similar
situation is very likely to prevail among certain disadvantaged sections of society – the ST, SC,
and some of the larger minority groups – who are usually located on the bottom rungs of the
socio-economic ladder.
Our study, while not addressing the above issues directly, tries to understand the process by
which girls as well as boys belonging to marginal social groups drop out of school or become
irregular in their attendance. Our overwhelming impression is that parents both recognise the
value of educating their children and are willing to invest whatever meagre resources they can
afford in education. Despite this acceptance of the value of education, there are significant
impediments to the full realisation of this aspiration – generating ambiguity about the relevance
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