Women and Property in Urban India

Women and Property in Urban India PDF

Author: Bipasha Baruah

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 2010-11-07

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 0774819308

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Half the world's population now lives in cities. Governments and international development agencies have made housing the urban poor a priority, but few focus on women's needs. Based on research conducted in Ahmedabad in collaboration with the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), this book maps the constraints and opportunities that low-income women throughout the Global South face in securing property, which remains overwhelmingly in male hands. Their experiences and vulnerabilities open a window to assess not only land tenure and property laws but also potential solutions such as microcredit financing and diverse theoretical approaches to gender and development.

She Comes to Take Her Rights

She Comes to Take Her Rights PDF

Author: Srimati Basu

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1999-02-25

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0791495922

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Using the contemporary workings of property law in India through the lives and thoughts of middle-class and poor women, this is a study of the ways in which cultural practices, and particularly notions of gender ideology, guide the workings of law. It urges a close reading of decisions by women that appear to be contrary to material interests and that reinforce patriarchal ideologies. Hailed as a radical moment for gender equality, the Hindu Succession Act was passed in India in 1956 theoretically giving Hindu women the right to equal inheritance of their parents' self-acquired property. However, in the years since the act's existence, its provisions have scarcely been utilized. Using interview data drawn from middle-class and poor neighborhoods in Delhi, this book explores the complexity of women's decisions with regard to family property in this context. The book shows that it is not passivity, ignorance of the law, naiveté about wealth, or unthinking adherence to gender prescriptions that guides women's decisions, but rather an intricate negotiation of kinship and an optimization of socioeconomic and emotional needs. An examination of recent legal cases also reveals that the formal legal realm can be hospitable to women's rights-based claims, but judgments are still coded in terms of customary provisions despite legal criteria to the contrary.

Women, Power, and Property

Women, Power, and Property PDF

Author: Rachel E. Brulé

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-10-22

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 1108870600

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Quotas for women in government have swept the globe. Yet we know little about their capacity to upend entrenched social, political, and economic hierarchies. Women, Power, and Property explores this question within the context of India, the world's largest democracy. Brulé employs a research design that maximizes causal inference alongside extensive field research to explain the relationship between political representation, backlash, and economic empowerment. Her findings show that women in government – gatekeepers – catalyze access to fundamental economic rights to property. Women in politics have the power to support constituent rights at critical junctures, such as marriage negotiations, when they can strike integrative solutions to intrahousehold bargaining. Yet there is a paradox: quotas are essential for enforcement of rights, but they generate backlash against women who gain rights without bargaining leverage. In this groundbreaking study, Brulé shows how well-designed quotas can operate as a crucial tool to foster equality and benefit the women they are meant to empower.

Challenges and Opportunities in Land Ownership for Women in the Informal Sector in Urban Contemporary India

Challenges and Opportunities in Land Ownership for Women in the Informal Sector in Urban Contemporary India PDF

Author: Bipasha Baruah

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 62

ISBN-13:

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While I was aware of some of the social, political and cultural underpinnings of women's inferior position in land relations and in society at large in South Asia, my research grew out of a desire to gain a more nuanced understanding of issues relating to Indian women's access to and authority over urban land and landed property. [...] While the residents of only one slum had access to formal land titles through a Government of Gujarat land distribution program, others considered quasi-legal and informal factors like the length of occupation, the size of a settlement, political patronage, the level and cohesion of community organization, support from civil society organizations, or possession of documents like ration cards and e [...] They mentioned the ability of political leaders to secure multiple stay orders on eviction notices and the eventual willingness of the municipal corporation to include the slums in the upgradation project as evidence of their security of tenure. [...] It can also mean that the position of women in landed property ownership is not necessarily an outcome of the desire to subjugate women but may well be a consequence of competition between different groups of men or of the inability of certain groups of men to acquire control over landed property. [...] But women's ability to improve their position in the intrahousehold arena has been impeded by a history of entrenching inequality in the construction of gender, in the entitlement to property and in public decision-making.

Hindu Women's Property Rights in Rural India

Hindu Women's Property Rights in Rural India PDF

Author: Reena Patel

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-02-06

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1351156381

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Hindu women in India have independent right of ownership to property under the Law of Succession (The Hindu Succession Act, 1956). However, during the last five decades of its operation not many women have exercised their rights under the enactment. This volume addresses the issue of Hindu peasant women's ability to effectuate the statutory rights to succession and assert ownership of their share in family land. The work combines a critical evaluation of law with economic analyses into allocation of resources within the family as a means of addressing gender relations and explaining resulting gender inequalities.

Cities, Slums and Gender in the Global South

Cities, Slums and Gender in the Global South PDF

Author: Sylvia Chant

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1317950372

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Developing regions are set to account for the vast majority of future urban growth, and women and girls will become the majority inhabitants of these locations in the Global South. This is one of the first books to detail the challenges facing poorer segments of the female population who commonly reside in ‘slums’. It explores the variegated disadvantages of urban poverty and slum-dwelling from a gender perspective. This book revolves around conceptualisation of the ‘gender-urban-slum interface’ which explains key elements to understanding women’s experiences in slum environments. It has a specific focus on the ways in which gender inequalities are can be entrenched but also alleviated. Included is a review of the demographic factors which are increasingly making cities everywhere ‘feminised spaces’, such as increased rural-urban migration among women, demographic ageing, and rising proportions of female-headed households in urban areas. Discussions focus in particular on education, paid and unpaid work, access to land, property and urban services, violence, intra-urban mobility, and political participation and representation. This book will be of use to researchers and professionals concerned with gender and development, urbanisation and rural-urban migration.

Institutional Provisions and Care for the Aged

Institutional Provisions and Care for the Aged PDF

Author: Irudaya Rajan

Publisher: Anthem Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 8190583565

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'Institutional Provisions and Care for the Aged' provides a detailed comparative study of social and economic issues facing the elderly in India, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands. All three countries offer interesting insights, and this book addresses a wide spectrum of issues faced by the elderly, and an understanding of the processes at work in the broader social and economic context.

Women and Property

Women and Property PDF

Author: Renee Hirschon

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-07-21

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1000913376

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First published in 1984, Women and Property studies the idea of wealth and property in relation to women in diverse countries. It attempts a definition of the term 'property' itself and goes on to look at the relationships and rights associated with these various kinds of property. The authors assess the effects of wider economic forces and State intervention, indicating the changing contexts in which these systems are set today. In some cases, life-cycle markers such as marriage, divorce and widowhood are critical, and in many cases, it is the organisation of the household, residential patterns and kinship rights which are seen to structure the relationships of women, men and property. Ideological constructs regarding female sexuality, and also those in which women and children may be conceptualised as 'objects' are considered in detail. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to the significance of property as a critical factor affecting the position of women in society, and the original papers presented here provide new dimensions for a neglected area of feminist debate. This book will be of interest to students of sociology, political science, law and gender studies.