Position of women in the Ladiya society: demographic perspectives.

Position of women has been assessed in terms of demographic perspectives among an offshoot population of a depressed class, namely the Ladiya of Pathariya Jat village of Sagar district, Madhya Pradesh, India. Fertility as well as infant mortality both is found to be considerably high among the womenfolk. It reveals that the Ladiya mothers opt for frequent child bearing in order to make up the loss due to infant mortality, despite the consequent risk of their health as well as survival. The present study, however, inferred that to improve overall status of the women, effort should be made to improve their level of educational attainment and increase their active participation in economic activities for better employment. This will help the women to have more autonomy in decision making to overcome the high rate of infant mortality and birth rate--as well as natural growth rate of the study population.