Socio-economic profile and background of recently delivered women in Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

The state of UP has witnessed the CHW engagement through a long history since the 70s and currently it is the key strategy to percolate primary health care to the masses. The current lot of CHWs in UP are the ASHAs who are the daughters-in-law of a family that resides in the same community that they serve as the grassroots health worker since 2005 when the NRHM was introduced in the EAG states. UP is one such state. The current study explores some of the crucial variables of the socio-economic profile of the Recently Delivered Women (RDW) or mothers in four districts of UP. From the catchment area of each ASHA, two RDWs were selected who had a child in the age group of 3 to 6 months. Through this profile, the selection criteria of RDWs, education profile of RDWs, religion of RDWs are reflected upon to give a picture that represents the entire state of UP.
The relevance of the study assumes significance as data on the details of socio-economic profile of recently delivered mothers are not available even in large scale surveys like National Family Health Survey 4 done in 2015-16. The social characteristics of women in the age group of 15-49 years are discussed in NFHS 4 but the current study had women less than 30 years of age as they had to be RDWs.
A total of four districts of Uttar Pradesh were selected purposively for the study and the data collection was conducted in the villages of the respective districts with the help of a pre-tested structured interview schedule with both close-ended and open-ended questions. In addition, in-depth interviews were also conducted amongst the RDWs and a total 500 respondents had participated in the study.
Among the children, across the districts more children were in the age group of 5-6 months than the 3-4 moths age group. The average number of live births of RDWs in Barabanki district was 2.6 followed by Saharanpur with 2.5 and 2.3 in each of the rest of the two districts. The average age of RDWs in the 4 districts was in the range of 26-30 years. The data showed that in Barabanki the average number of surviving children of RDWs was 2.6 followed by 2.5 in Saharanpur, 2.3 in Gonda and 2.2 in Banda district. The average age of RDWs at the time of marriage across the four districts showed that the age was 19 years in Barabanki and 18 in the rest of the 3 districts.
A look at the profile of the social category of RDWs across the four districts showed that majority were in the SC or OBC category. The educational profiles of RDWs reflected that most of the RDWs across the four districts were illiterate. 71% of RDWs in Barabanki, 42% in Banda, 37% in Gonda and 32% in Saharanpur were illiterate. Majority of the RDWs across the four districts were Hindus.
The occupation profile of the households of RDWs told us that most households had cultivation as the main occupation. 80% of the households of RDWs in Saharanpur, 69% in Banda, 63% in Barabanki and 55% in Gonda did cultivation. The average number of family members in Barabanki was 8.4 followed by Saharanpur and Gonda with 8.2.
Analysis of the average monthly income of the household of RDWs showed that Saharanpur had the maximum average monthly income of the house-holds of RDWs among the 4 districts.