Bangalore classified as ‘gender critical' city for Census

Bangalore's women population will be given extra attention during population enumeration beginning February 9 as Bangalore Urban district is the only district in Karnataka, which has been classified as “gender critical” among 262 districts and cities in the country.

Bangalore Urban district, comprising Bangalore city, has been categorised as “gender critical” district as its female work participation rate is less than the national average rate of 20 per cent as the data of Census-2001 female work participation rate is one of the three conditions fixed by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India to determine gender criticality of a district or city.

The other two conditions are sex ratio of less than 900 and female literacy rate of than 30 per cent. Bangalore city district's female work participation rate is 18.7.

Even though Bangalore Urban district is the only district or city in the State having this rate below the national average, its rate is far better than other major cities in the southern States as well as other metropolitan cities.

Female work participation rate in Hyderabad is 9.9. In Thiruvananthapuram, it is 14.5, Chennai 13.5, Mumbai 13.7, New Delhi 15.6 and Kolkata 12.8.

While the entire Census 2011 operation will give special focus to enumeration of women, their literacy and participation in works — either in domestic or vocational capacity — additional attention will be given to elicit more accurate information in this regard in the “gender critical” districts and cities.

Questions related to fertility particulars — children surviving (for currently married, widowed, divorced, or separated women only), children ever born (for currently married, widowed, divorced, or separated women only) and number of children born alive during last one year (for currently married women only) will be asked as they are related to female sex ratio.

Correct information

To ensure that correct information about status of women is gathered during house-to-house survey, the enumerators have been given special training under a special training module called “gender sensitisation training” to collect working status of women, said T.K. Anil Kumar, Director, Census Operations in Karnataka.

Pointing out that accuracy of female work participation rate will depend on the correct disclosure of information by women and their family members, and proper elicitation of information by the enumerator, Mr. Anil Kumar said that in many instances people do not disclose accurate information regarding their working status for various reasons.

Hence, enumerators have been given training to understand human behaviour and ask relevant questions to elicit the correct information, Mr. Anil Kumar added.