Reproductive Morbidity among the Women Slum Dwellers in Andhra Pradesh

The women in slums were either home based workers or worked in the small industrial units close by. Thus, they were exposed to an additional degraded environment through their paid work. They also faced a heavier work burden because employment does not free women from the responsibility of housework. Thus, we find that they suffer from the highest level of morbidity. This finding has a very important implication for the understanding of urban health problems. The high morbidity among slum dwellers, especially women, impresses on us, the need to study 'slum' not merely as a physical environment, but also to examine the social, economic and even psychological pressures that these communities and their women face. Our field experience made it very evident that destitution was not a widespread problem, even among the slum households. We found that, by and large, the households did not face any threats to survival. The income of all the households seemed adequate to fulfil the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. What the slum households did experience was relative poverty. As they form the margin of a highly developed and relatively prosperous urban economy.

Autorentext

Dr. B. Raveendra Naik (1981) (M.S.W, SET., Ph.D) is born in Piler Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh, India. He obtained Ph.D in the Department of Population Studies and Social Work in 2012 from S.V. University, Tirupati. He worked as Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work at Arba Minch University Ethiopia, Africa for couple of years