Empowering tribal women: a comparative analysis of matrilineal and patrilineal societies in India

Figures & data

Table 1. List of the variables used to calculate SWPER Index, NFHS-4 (2015–2016) and 5 (2019–2021).

Domains of empowerment	Variables	Code or units
Attitude to violence	Beating is justified if wife goes out without telling husband	Yes = −1, do not know = 0, no = 1
	Beating is justified if wife neglects the children
	Beating is justified if wife argues with husband
	Beating is justified if wife refuses to have sex with husband
	Beating is justified if wife burns the food
Freedom to movement	Usually allowed to go to the market	Not at all = −1, with someone = 0 and Respondent alone = 1
	Usually allowed to go to health facilities
	Usually allowed to go to outside village
Decision making	Who usually decides on respondent’s health care	Partner/other alone = −1, Respondent and husband / partner =0 and Respondent alone = 1
	Who usually decides on respondent’s household’s purchases
	Who usually decides on visits to family or relatives
Social independence	Frequency of reading newspapers or magazine	No = 0, <once a week = 1, >once a week = 2, all day = 3
	Woman’s year of education	Year
	Age of respondent at first birth**
	Age at first cohabitation
	Has a bank account	No = 0, yes = 1
	Respondent worked in last 12 months (work)	No = 0, in the past year =1, currently working = 2

** Imputed for women who had not had a child as suggested (Ewerling et al., 2017).

Table 2. Empowerment scenario of matrilineal and patrilineal tribes, NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 (2015–2016 and 2019–2021).

	Societal lineage structure
	2015–2016		2019–2021
Empowerment domain	Matrilineal (n = 4723)	Patrilineal (n = 3951)	Matrilineal (n = 7513)	Patrilineal (n = 4587)
Percentage of women justified wife beating
If wife goes out without telling husband	13.5	12.4	14.2	6.1
If wife neglects the children	24.7	19.7	22.2	12.1
If wife argues with husband	20.6	21.1	12.2	11.6
If wife refuses to have sex with husband	8.4	8.9	8.3	6.4
If wife burns the food	10.6	9.7	6.9	5.8
Freedom of mobility alone
Market	72.6	65.8	76.4	62.4
Health facilities	59.5	54.5	65.6	48.6
Outside village	46.8	56.2	50.4	53.3
Percentage of women make a decision alone
Healthcare	15.0	4.7	9.5	8.9
Household purchases	23.0	3.5	13.4	5.3
Visit to family or relative	9.4	4.4	8.3	6.3
Social independence
Reading newspaper or magazine at least once a week	25.0	9.4	38.8	15.2
Woman’s average year of education	6.0	6.0	6.0	7.0
Age of respondent at 1st birth	21.5	21.1	21.5	21.4
Age at first cohabitation	20.0	19.5	20.4	19.8
Has a bank account	54.8	49.7	59.2	36.2
Respondent worked in the last 12 months	38.2	14.1	48.3	20.9

Table 3. SWPER scores of different domains of women empowerment among matrilineal and patrilineal tribes, NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 (2015–2016 and 2019–2021).

	Societal lineage structure
	2015–2016		2019–2021
SWPER score	Matrilineal	Patrilineal	Matrilineal	Patrilineal
Attitude to violence	0.242	0.314	0.109	0.351
Freedom to movement	0.203	0.180	0.294	0.021
Decision making	0.498	0.055	0.298	0.085
Social independence	−4.987	−4.913	−0.001	−0.310

Table 4. SWPER scores of different domains of women empowerment among matrilineal and patrilineal tribes for different subgroups, NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 (2015–2016 and 2019–2021).

	SWPERAttitude to violence		SWPERFreedom of movement		SWPERDecision making		SWPERsocial independence
	Matrilineal	Patrilineal	Matrilineal	Patrilineal	Matrilineal	Patrilineal	Matrilineal	Patrilineal
2015–2016
Age
Less than 20	0.250	0.334	0.163	−0.321	0.212	0.056	−4.936	−4.853
20–30	0.267	0.381	0.120	0.115	0.403	0.049	−4.973	−4.924
30–40	0.275	0.248	0.185	0.228	0.495	0.081	−4.995	−4.913
More than 40	0.158	0.302	0.349	0.283	0.674	0.028	−5.001	−4.906
Religion
Hindu	0.551	0.311	−1.211	0.179	−0.602	0.064	−4.758	−4.910
Christian	0.221	0.331	0.214	0.164	0.503	−0.074	−4.992	−4.950
Buddhist	NA	0.760	NA	0.921	NA	0.305	NA	−4.865
No religion	0.632	NA	0.832	NA	0.372	NA	−5.120	NA
Other	0.515	NA	0.295	NA	0.715	NA	−4.939	NA
Wealth
Poor	0.285	0.222	0.190	0.127	0.397	0.010	−4.960	−4.883
Middle	0.186	0.440	0.243	0.254	0.578	0.069	−5.003	−4.848
Rich	0.319	0.440	0.084	0.246	0.542	0.263	−5.023	−4.933
2019–2021
Age
Less than 20	0.147	0.387	0.015	−0.230	0.160	−0.516	−0.070	−0.491
20–30	0.090	0.384	0.227	−0.221	0.252	0.075	0.014	−0.195
30–40	0.095	0.372	0.349	0.206	0.297	0.136	−0.006	−0.307
More than 40	0.159	0.262	0.316	0.098	0.398	0.089	−0.007	−0.460
Religion
Hindu	0.123	0.338	0.024	0.036	−0.211	0.086	−0.322	−0.304
Christian	0.088	0.459	0.299	−0.074	0.335	0.091	0.031	−0.345
Buddhist	NA	0.510	NA	−0.464	NA	−0.051	NA	−0.513
No religion	0.539	NA	−0.023	NA	0.462	NA	−1.006	NA
Other	0.429	NA	0.539	NA	0.385	NA	−0.166	NA
Wealth
Poor	0.024	0.043	0.270	0.097	0.247	0.087	−0.305	−0.487
Middle	0.246	0.314	0.329	−0.165	0.352	0.061	0.339	−0.033
Rich	0.286	−0.096	0.357	−0.066	0.485	0.184	1.056	0.774

NA: not applicable

Table 5. Results of multiple linear regression showing factors associated with different domains of empowerment (based on pooled NFHS data, 2014–2015 and 2019–2021).

	SWPERAttitude to violence	SWPERFreedom of movement	SWPERDecision making	SWPERSocial independence
Societal lineage structure
Matrilineal^®		.
Patrilineal	0.23*** [0.13, 0.33]	−0.11 [−0.27, 0.05]	−0.22** [−0.37, −0.07]	−0.10* [−0.19, −0.01]
Age group
Less than 20^®
20–29	0.01 [−0.14, 0.16]	0.2* [−0.03, 0.43]	0.22* [0.03, 0.42]	0.05 [−0.08, 0.18]
30–39	−0.04 [−0.19, 0.12]	0.42*** [0.19, 0.65]	0.26** [0.06, 0.45]	0 [−0.13, 0.13]
More than 40	−0.07 [−0.23, 0.10]	0.43*** [0.19, 0.65]	0.28** [0.06, 0.46]	−0.08 − 0.21, 0.06]
Wealth
Poor^®
Middle	0.08* [0.00, 0.15]	−0.02 [−0.11, 0.06]	0.07 [−0.01, 0.15]	0.26*** [0.20, 0.32]
Rich	0.06 [−0.15, 0.26]	−0.04 [−0.20, 0.12]	0.17** [0.06, 0.29]	0.54*** [0.40, 0.68]
Religion		.
Hindu^®
Christian	0.05 [−0.05, 0.15]	0.03 [−0.13, 0.19]	0.09 [−0.06, 0.24]	0 [−0.09, 0.08]
Buddhist	0.23* [0.03, 0.43]	−0.29 [−0.98, 0.41]	−0.08 [−0.52, 0.36]	−0.31 [−0.69, 0.08]
No religion	0.55*** [0.36, 0.74]	0.41* [0.04, 0.77]	0.11 [−0.46, 0.68]	−0.2 [−0.43, 0.03]
Other	0.37*** [0.24, 0.51]	0.24* [0.01, 0.47]	0.2 [−0.02, 0.42]	−0.01 [−0.21, 0.19]
Time
NFHS-4 (2015–2016)^®
NFHS-5 (2019–2021)	−0.01 [−0.09, 0.07]	−0.09*[-0.17,-0.01]	−0.03[-0.11,0.04]	4.78***[4.72, 4.83]
Constant	0.1 [−0.08, 0.28]	−0.06[-0.35,0.22]	0.03[-0.22,0.28]	−5.02***[−5.17, −4.8

^® : reference category

* p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

Ewerling, F., Lynch, J. W., Victora, C. G., van Eerdewijk, A., Tyszler, M., & Barros, A. J. D. (2017). The SWPER index for women’s empowerment in Africa: Development and validation of an index based on survey data. The Lancet Global Health, 5(9), e916–e923. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(17)30292-9

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.