Impact of Culture, Status of Women and Demographic Behaviour

This book by Alaka M. Basu, visiting fellow at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, is a useful addition to the demographic literature available for India. It examines the effect of culture and the status of women on the demographic behaviour of two groups of women. These are from North and South India living in the slums of Delhi. The demographic practices and attitudes are found to be different in the two groups, the major part of which can be explained by the cultural differences envisaged through the status of women. There are scores of studies in the field which often lay stress on the demographic attitudes of women affected by socio-economic variates. But in the present book the idea is to keep the socio-economic variates constant and attribute the observed differences to cultural ones affecting the status of women.