1. INTRODUCTION:

The Scheduled tribe population constitutes 5.80 percent of the total population of West Bengal¹. In the colonial period, colonial administrators used the term,' Primitive' or 'Aboriginal' to denote the tribal groups, but in the recent period, they are called by the term ‘Adivasi’ or early settler of our country². They are also known as ‘aboriginal tribes’, ‘primitive tribes’, ‘animists’, ‘Hindu tribal’, etc. in different parts of India, but in the constitution of India, they are termed as a ‘Scheduled Tribe’ from March in 1950. Though there is no such evidence about the actual period of inhabitants of tribal population in India, it has been thought that they entered India before the Aryans from China, Burma and Tibet³.

Like any other community of India, the disparity between males and females within every field of development is an important issue among the tribal communities. However, according to some scholars, gender inequality is much lower in the tribal communities than in mainstream societies. One of the main reasons is that tribal women are involved in various economic activities. They work as laborers in various industries and in the agricultural sectors. Their earnings provide a lot of financial support to their families. As a result, they can give their opinion on any issue in the family. Their honor and rights in the family are higher than that of women from other communities of main stream society. Yet tribal women, like other social groups, suffer from gender discrimination in a number of ways from tribal men and women are treated as second class citizen in India⁴. Even today, tribal women lag far behind in terms of education among tribal men and women in advanced sections of society. However, the level of gender inequality varies among tribal groups. In some tribal societies, gender inequality is very high and in some tribal societies, gender inequality is low. Most of the working women in India are not aware about human rights and constitutional safeguards and this unawareness often becomes obstacle of not raising voice against the violation of human rights and gender discrimination⁵.

Although a lot of research works have been done on the tribal society of West Bengal, all those works are not enough to reveal the real socio-economic status of the women in the tribal society in the study area. This paper makes a modest attempt to analyze the socio-economic condition of women in respect of tribal males and the women of general population. The article analyzes the level of gender inequality between different tribes in spatial-temporal dimension. The issue of gender inequality in rural areas as well as in urban areas is also discussed in the districts. This paper compares the status of women population of these two classes (Tribal and population in general) and the changes of socio-economic backwardness of tribal women in West Bengal and in India. This paper has also focused on the factors which are responsible more for the poor socio-economic condition of tribal women and has suggested remedial measures to upgrade the standard of living of tribal women.

2. STUDY AREA:

The study area, West Bengal is an eastern state of India covering an area of 88752 sq. Kilometers (Fig 1). This area is extended from 27º13´15ʺ N latitude to 21º25´24ʺ N latitude and 85º48´20ʺ E to 89º53´04ʺ E longitude and this study area is surrounded by three international borders of three-nation i.e., Bangladesh border in the east, Bhutan border in the north and Nepal border in the west. There are five common state borders with West Bengal for example Assam state in the east, Sikkim state in the north and Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa state in the west and the southern border of the study area is bounded by the Bay of Bengal (Census of India, 2011).

This state includes some geographical landscapes viz. in the north Darjeeling Himalayan region; the Rarh region in the west; Gangetic delta region and ‘Sundarbans biodiversity hotspot’ region in the south. According to the annual report 2014-15 (West Bengal Forest directorate), the area of ‘Reserved Forest’ in west Bengal is 7054 sq. km, the area of ‘Protected Forest’ is 3772 sq km, the area of ‘Unclassed state forest’ coverage is 1053 sq km. The total area of forest coverage is 11897 sq km which is 13.38 percent of the total geographical area of the state.

A number of tribal groups live in west Bengal. The tribal population constitutes 5.80 percent of the total population of west Bengal. According to the 2011 census, the total tribal population of west Bengal is 5,296,953 persons, of which the male population is 2,649,974 persons and the female population is 2,646,979 persons. The total number of tribal populations living in the rural areas is 4,855,115 persons, of which the male population is 2,428,057 persons and the female population is 2,427,058 persons and the tribal population living in the urban areas is 441,838 persons, out of which the male population living in the urban area is 221,917 persons and the female population is 219,921 persons.

West Bengal has three administrative divisions i.e., Burdwan division, the presidency division and the Jalpaiguri division. This state has 19 administrative districts consisted of 66 sub-divisions, 341 Community Development Blocks (CD Blocks), 333 Panchyat Samity and 502 police stations (Census of India, 2011). There are a number of urban centers in each district of the study area. Some of the major urban centers are Kolkata of Kolkata, North twenty four Parganas, South twenty four Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly and Nadia district; Asansol of Paschim Bardhaman district; Siliguri of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri district; Maldah city of Maldah district; Baharampur of Murshidabad district; Kharagpur of Paschim Medinipur; Shantipur of Nadia district; Haldia of Purba Medinipur; Raiganj of Uttar Dinajpur; Bankura town of Bankura district; Puruliya town of Puruliya district, Cooch Behar of Cooch Behar district and so on.

Fig 1: Location map of the Study area Map source: Prepared by the authors by using the software Arc GIS 10

3. DATABASE AND METHODOLOGY:

The relevant data of the scheduled tribe population has been collected from the census of India, 1951, 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001 and 2011 to conduct the research work. Several cartographic maps have shown the spatial variations of the variables among districts-based rural and urban areas. Each variable is manually divided into three concentration categories (High, Moderate, and Low) of equal values by distinguishing the highest and lowest values in each variable.

The modified Sopher’s Disparity Index (1974) Modified of Kundu and Rao (1986) has been used to analysis the gender disparity.

Modified Sopher’s Disparity Index (1974) of Kundu and Rao (1986):

The modified Sopher's Disparity Index (1974) modified of Kundu and Rao (1986) has been applied to analyze the disparity between tribal males and females of West Bengal for the literacy rate and work participation rate for each district and each tribe of the study area. The formula:

Where, Q=constant=200, X₁ represents a lower percent, X₂representsa higher percentage of that variable. If the calculated value is 0 that means there is perfect equality. The positive calculated value (+) indicates the disparity. Higher the positive disparity index (DI) value indicates higher the disparity and vice versa.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS:

4.1 Sex ratio:

Sex ratio is a vital technique to describe the number of female populations per 1000 male population and it is an important indicator to analyze sex composition and to measure gender inequality of any community. Mitra (2008) has opined that an even sex ratio indicates less gender discrimination and better care and treatment of female infants⁶. Sex ratio is very significant to understand some demographic measures such as sex composition, the growth rate of population, marriage rate, female childbirth, mortality rate, etc. within a community⁷. The tribe wise analysis shows that in the rural areas of the study area Lodha tribe has the highest sex ratio (1088) which is followed by the Savar tribe (1014), Santal tribe (1013), Tamang tribe (1003) and Kora tribe (1002) (Table 1). Some other tribes having a high sex ratio in the urban sectors are the Limbu tribe (1051), Tamang tribe (1044), Santal tribe (1004), and Munda tribe (1002) (Table 1).

The spatial distribution of sex ratio in the study area has been categorized into three divisions in rural and urban sectors such as high sex ratio districts, moderate sex ratio districts and low sex ratio districts. In the rural sectors, seven districts are having a high sex ratio range from 998 to 1030 and two districts have a very low sex ratio which ranges from 932 to 964 (Fig 2). In the urban sectors also seven districts are having a high sex ratio which ranges from 996 to 1026 (Fig 3). Here it is very significant to note that there are three common districts i.e., Darjeeling, Birbhum and Paschim Medinipur which have high sex ratios in both rural and urban sectors.

It has been observed that the sex ratio is always high either in rural or urban areas among the scheduled tribe population. There are so many reasons behind this high sex ratio in rural areas than the urban areas. According to Mukherjee (2014), in rural sectors, the mortality rate of female infants is low due to low sex selection before birth and low abortion is practiced as low technological opportunities than urban sectors⁸. The migration of males from rural to urban is also lead to the decline of the urban sex ratio. According to Lonarkar (2018), the female mortality rate is lower than the males due to the availability of medical facilities on one hand and special care to female infants as a traditional faith among tribes leads to a greater number of females in the urban sectors on the other hand⁷.

Fig 4: Sex ratio of Scheduled tribe and all population in West Bengal

Source: Office of Registrar General, India

If the sex ratio of the tribal society and the general population is analyzed from 1951 to 2011, it can be seen that the sex ratio of the general population has always been lower than the sex ratio of the tribal population. However, one thing that is very noticeable here is that the difference between the sex ratio of the tribal society and the sex ratio of the general population has gradually decreased from the census year 1951 to the census year 2011 (Fig 4). But the sex ratio of tribal peoples has not changed much in the last 60 years. This proves that the demand for girl child in the tribal society is higher than the demand in other societies in West Bengal. The infant mortality rate and female feticide are higher in the advanced classes of society than in tribal societies and here it is also proved that gender inequality in tribal societies is comparatively less than the gender inequality of the general population.

4.2 Literacy rate of Women:

The availability of educational institutions and the attainment of these institutions advance the literacy rate. In a tribal society, the attainment of educational institutions differs between males and females. The literacy rate is related to the attainment of the educational institution reflects the female literacy rate. Female literacy always brings a reduction in the inequalities and improves the functions within a family as well as in the society⁹. But there is a large literacy gap between scheduled males and scheduled females’ literacy rate. Female literacy rate of some tribes is much high than the literacy rate of females of some other tribes of the study area. Such as 77.93 percent female populations of Lepcha tribe, 74.70 percent female population of Limbu tribe, 73.28 percent female population of Tamang tribe are literate. But women of some tribes are very lag behind from men in respect of literacy rate. For example, the literacy rate of women of saver tribe is 31.52 percent, the literacy rate of women of Lodha tribe is 36.21 percent and the literacy rate of Mal Pahariya tribe is 36.50 percent (table 1).

Gender disparity in literacy among the tribal communities of West Bengal is a very burning problem. The highest gender disparity in literacy has been noticed among the Savar tribe (0.21) and the gender disparity is also a common fact among the Kora tribe (0.20), the santal tribe (0.20), Lodha tribe (0.19), Ho tribe (0.19), Bhumij tribe (0.18) and remaining in all other tribes (Table 1).

To analyze, the spatial pattern of rural and urban Scheduled tribe female literacy rates, districts have been categorized into three intensity groups such as high female literacy districts, moderate female literacy districts and low female literacy districts. Darjiling and Koch Bihar district are in the category of high female literacy rate district in the rural sector of the study area (Fig 5) and there are seven districts in the urban sectors such as Darjiling, Koch Bihar, Dakshin Dinajpur, North 24 Parganas, Haora, Kolkata and Purba Medinipur in the category of high female literacy rate (Fig 6). There are two common districts are having a high female literacy rate in both sectors i.e., Darjiling and Koch Bihar districts.

Table 1: Sex ratio and gender disparity in literacy rate and work participation rate

Schedule Tribes	Literacy (in percent)		DI in Literacy	Work Participation Rate (in percent)		DI in the Work participation rate	General Fertility rate	Sex ratio
Schedule Tribes	Male	Female	DI in Literacy	Male	Female	DI in the Work participation rate	General Fertility rate	Rural	Urban
All Tribe	68.17	47.71	0.17	55.49	39.24	0.17	58	1000	991
1.Bedia	72.52	54.22	0.14	56.15	29.28	0.30	61	975	933
2.Bhumij	70.69	48.11	0.18	57.92	38.60	0.19	65	979	990
3.Kora	68.04	45.07	0.20	57.44	40.42	0.17	61	1002	976
4.Lepcha	86.78	77.93	0.07	51.35	28.52	0.27	42	957	1137
5.Mahali	66.31	43.63	0.20	54.57	37.49	0.18	65	1008	959
6.Mal Pahariya	49.10	36.50	0.14	56.53	35.05	0.22	70	998	903
7.Mech	80.80	67.60	0.10	55.86	26.38	0.34	47	980	956
8.Munda	67.18	48.31	0.16	55.54	35.83	0.21	58	989	1002
9.Oraon	68.14	49.86	0.15	51.10	35.22	0.18	54	993	987
10.Rabha	68.41	53.84	0.12	58.39	31.09	0.29	54	952	939
11.Santal	66.12	43.51	0.20	57.08	44.00	0.13	60	1013	1004
12.Savar	49.87	31.52	0.21	56.92	43.24	0.13	73	1014	966
13.Limbu	87.77	74.70	0.09	49.24	28.13	0.26	37	1000	1051
14.Tamang	87.66	73.28	0.10	47.24	27.00	0.26	35	1003	1044
15.Lodha	54.61	36.21	0.19	55.35	42.60	0.13	64	1088	990
16.Ho	65.20	43.25	0.19	57.39	45.99	0.11	66	995	950
17.Nagesia	70.12	53.52	0.13	51.05	25.75	0.31	50	981	1018
18.Other Tribes	72.16	55.21	0.13	53.79	31.74	0.24	54	730	953

Source: Computed by the authors from the census of West Bengal, 2011

Literacy rate and educational level lead to social, political, cultural development as it develops the quality of life, the standard of living, increase awareness level and it makes people skillful in the society. It makes the people health-conscious and eligible for employment opportunities which gear up a society to meet any kind of developmental challenges. But in the tribal societies, females are most deprived of attaining education. The high poverty level among the scheduled tribe communities is a chief obstacle to learning in schools of tribal women. At the primary level, schedule tribe female enrollment in schools is high but with up-gradation of level, the dropout from schools of female’s increases, this may be a cause of female negligence of parents towards education due to poor economic condition of the family. Most of the scheduled tribe females became engaged in various household works, they nourish their younger kinship when parents move out for work from house and the poor economic conditions lead to no enrollment in schools or drop out from schools (10). For tribal educational development, various schemes have been applied by the Indian Government. But most of the schemes are not conceptualized and localized considering the local barriers of tribal education and a mixture of political biases; corruption and unwillingness for tribal development are the root causes for the low literacy level of the tribal women population. Lower female literacy is the result of lack of awareness of the parents for girl education, unavailability of schools in the remote tribal villages; languages used during teaching are not perceptible for tribal children. In the case of female dropout from schools with higher educational level, Joshi (2010) has opined that most of the tribal parents feel insecure to send girl child to school due to males’ molestation (11). and Sethi (2016) has opined that parent think that as girls will be married soon and as young age is the childbearing age so there is no need for higher education for girl children (12). All these are the negative factors of low female literacy among the tribal communities of West Bengal. But it is very important to upgrade women empowerment and increase of female literacy rate (13).

Fig: 5: Rural Schedule Tribe Female Literacy Map

Fig: 6: Urban Schedule Tribe Female Literacy Map

Source: Computed by the authors on the basis of the census of West Bengal, 2011 by using the software Arc GIS 10

Table 2 explains how the literacy rate of the tribal communities and the general population of West Bengal and India have changed from 1961 to 2011. It has been observed that in 1961, the literacy rate of tribal women in West Bengal was very low, only 1.76 percent. But in the same census year, the literacy rate of women in the general population was 20.27 percent. According to the 2011 census, the literacy rate of tribal women in West Bengal has increased to 47.71 percent. On the other hand, the literacy rate in the general population has increased to 70.54 percent, which is much higher than the literacy rate of tribal women. Similarly, if the literacy rate of tribal women at the national level is analyzed in terms of periods, it can be seen that the literacy rate of tribal women in India was 3.16 percent in 1961, which has increased to 49.40 percent as per 2011 census. But the literacy rate of women in the general population was 15.35 percent in 1961 which has increased to 64.60 percent as per 2011 census. However, it is important to mention here that the literacy rate of tribal women is much lower than that of tribal men and men in general population. According to 2011 census, the literacy rate of tribal men in West Bengal is 68.17 percent and that of tribal women is 47.71 percent. At the national level, the literacy rate of tribal men is 68.50 percent and that of women is 49.40 percent. In any case, the literacy rate of tribal women is lower than that of any other social groups of the study area. So, literacy rate of tribal women is always lower than the literacy rate of tribal male in spatial-temporal dimension. Dr. U.N. Neena Rani (2016) has opined that female belonging to low socio-economic family background and low parental education often get discouraged to go to school than the females of belonging to developed socio-economic family background and literate parental family¹⁴.

4.3 General fertility rate of Women:

The general fertility rate of women is defined as the reproductive performance of women of the childbearing age group (ages 15 to 49) at mid-year. The nations having a large proportion of women population of childbearing age like around 25 ages indicate a better general fertility rate of women population than the nations with having a high proportion of female population around the age of 40 years. In the tribal community of west Bengal general fertility rate is 58 in 1000 female population of childbearing age group. The highest general fertility rate has been observed among the Savar tribe (73) which is followed by Mal Pahariya tribe (70), Ho tribe (66), Mahali tribe (65), Bhumij tribe (65), Lodha tribe (64), Kora tribe (61), Bedia tribe (61) and Santal tribe (60) and some other tribes which have very low fertility rates such as the Tamang tribe (35), Limbu tribe (37), Lepcha (42) and Mech tribe (47) (Table 1). But in the case of the general population of West Bengal, the general fertility rate is 53. In the urban areas, it is 41 and in the rural areas, it is 59 (Census of India, 2011). So, tribal women have high general fertility rate than the females in general population.

Table 2: Literacy of Scheduled tribe and all population in west Bengal and in India

Census Year	Scheduled Tribe Population				All Population
	West Bengal		India		West Bengal		India
	Male Literacy	Female Literacy	Male Literacy	Female Literacy	Male Literacy	Female Literacy	Male Literacy	Female Literacy
1961	11.2	1.76	13.83	3.16	46.57	20.27	40.4	15.35
1971	14.49	3.09	17.63	4.85	42.84	22.08	45.96	21.97
1981	21.16	5.01	24.52	8.04	50.67	30.25	56.38	29.76
1991	40.07	14.98	40.65	18.19	67.81	46.6	64.13	39.29
2001	57.4	29.2	59.17	34.76	77	59.6	75.26	53.67
2011	68.17	47.71	68.5	49.4	81.69	70.54	80.9	64.6

Source: Office of Registrar General, India

Several factors determine the general fertility rate. Spatial regional differences in fertility pattern of scheduled tribe population are the result of the economic condition of the family, social customs of the community, hierarchical structure of the family, literacy rate of the parents, proximity with the mainstream population and medical facilities available therein. According to Hiwarkar and HB (2013) either in the rural or urban areas reproduction rate of women is more at the age group 15- 24 years in illiterate women, in working women and women of joint families¹⁵. The fertility pattern of any particular geographical region may differ among tribes residing therein depending on various socio-economic factors while the fertility pattern of a particular tribe of a particular region may differ from that tribe of another geographical area. In this respect, Mitra (2008) said that in the patrilineal tribal society of India, decisions of women to have a child rest on the hand of the husband and elder member of the family and women have to please the other members of the family by giving birth of the male child⁶. Chaudhury (1988) said that among many tribes of India early marriage practice and declining trend of breastfeeding affects high fertility rate and high child mortality rate as infant mortality rate controls fertility rate ¹⁶. Maharatna (2000) opined that the Proximity with the non-tribal mainstream population of tribes, high literacy rate and long birth interval among some tribes of India declines the fertility behavior of tribal women ¹⁷. Nutritional deficiency of tribal women and consumption of alcohol of tribal women of Jharkhand and West Bengal during pregnancy directly influences the reproductive performance and the birth weight of the children^18.

4.4 Work participation rate of women:

The highest female work participation rate has been observed among the Ho tribe (45.99 percent) which is followed by the Santhal tribe (44.00 percent), Savar tribe (43.24 percent), Lodha tribe (42.60 percent) and Kora tribe (40.42 percent) and the lowest female work participation rate has been observed among Nagesia tribe (25.75 percent) which is followed by Mech tribe (26.38 percent), Tamang tribe (27.00 percent), Limbu tribe (28.13 percent), Lepcha tribe (28.52 percent) and Bedia tribe (29.28 percent) (Table 1).

Significant spatial differences in the work participation rate are the result of various socio-economic factors like female autonomy in the family, availability and type of economic sectors, proximity with the urban hinterland and literacy of females, etc. But it is also necessary to notice the male-female disparity in the work participation rate. The scheduled tribe women of most of the tribes work simultaneously with the men in different working sectors to fulfill their basic needs of daily life. They always stay ready to take any burden of their own family either of any domestic works or in other economic fields. But the presence of disparity in work participation (0.17) is a common fact in all tribes. Among the tribes of the study area, the lowest gender disparity in the work participation rate has been observed among the Ho tribe (0.11). Several other tribes which have very low gender disparity in work participation rates such as the Lodha tribe (0.13), Santhal tribe (0.13) and Savar tribe (0.13), and so on and relatively higher gender disparity in the work participation rate is found in tribes such as the Mech tribe (0.34), Nigesia tribe (0.31), Bedia tribe (0.30) and Rabha tribe (0.29), etc. (Table 1).

Districts are categorized into three groups to show the spatial differences of the female work participation rate, such as high work participation districts, moderate work participation districts and low work participation districts. In the rural sectors, districts having high female work participation are Dakshin Dinajpur, Birbhum, Bardhaman, Hugli, Bankura, Puruliya and Paschim Medinipur (Fig 7) whereas, districts of the high female work participation rate in the urban sectors are Dakshin Dinajpur, Maldah, Murshidabad, Birbhum, Hugli and south 24 Parganas (Fig 8). There are three common districts with having a high female work participation rate in both sectors are Dakshin Dinajpur, Birbhum and Hugli district.

Fig: 7: Rural Schedule Tribe Female Work Participation Map

Fig: 8: Urban Schedule Tribe Female Work Participation Map

Source: Computed by the authors on the basis of the census of West Bengal, 2011 by using the software Arc GIS 10

The tribal females are considered as economic assets in some tribal communities of India and quite often tribal women work physically more in either agricultural field or in the forest than tribal men and there is less proportionate participation of tribal women in the modern sectors of the economy compared to the tribal men in India ^19. Work participation of tribal women depends on the cultural norms of tribes and working sectors available therein. Tribal women of the Santhal tribe, Savar tribe, Lodha tribe and Kora tribe and some other tribes of the study area feel free to work in different working sectors as main or marginal workers. Work participation of women makes women self-dependent and this leads to an increase in the literacy level of females which develops the social status of females in the community. Dr. R.P. Saharia (2014) has opined that MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) plays a vital role in generating women working sectors and bringing them into the productive zones in the rural areas ⁽²⁰⁾. SHG (Self Help Group) is also an important tool which plays important role in providing micro credit to needed women and also build leadership qualities and confidential level of women ²¹ in the tribal society as well as in general women population. But women of some tribes such as Tamang tribe, Mech tribe, Limbu tribe, Lepcha tribe and Bedia tribe have a low female work participation rate.

An analysis of the participation rate of tribal women in the work from the census year 1961 to 2011 shows that tribal women are engaged in various economic activities equivalent to tribal men (Table 3). In the census year 1961 the work participation rate of tribal women was 41.55 percent and in 2011 it is 39.24 percent. In 1961, the work participation rate of tribal men was 58.48 percent and in 2011 it was 55.49 percent. That is, there is not much difference in the work participation rate between tribal men and tribal women. But one thing to note here is that the work participation rate of women of general population (all population) is much lower than that of tribal women. According to 2011 census, the work participation rate of women in the general population is only 18.08 percent and in 1961 it was only 9.43 percent. Based on this information, it can be concluded that tribal women are engaged in various economic activities from the women of general population which helps tribal women to live in their own society with due dignity and rights.

5. COEFFICIENT OF CO-RELATION:

The variables taken to depict the status of Scheduled Tribe women should analyze the interrelationship among those variables. Correlation expresses the strength of the relationship between the pairs of variables and regression expresses the linear relationship by a form of an equation. A correlation matrix (Table 4) has been generated based on the relationship of some variables of seventeen (N = 17) scheduled tribe population of West Bengal.

5.1 Female Literacy and Female work participation rate:

It is a fact that the increasing literacy rate of women should increase the capability of women in work participation. But this theory may not be true in all communities. It is very significant to notice that there is a moderate negative relationship (r = -.794) between the female literacy rate and female work participation rate and this relationship at the 0.01 level (2- tailed) is significant (Table 4).

In the tribal community, most of the females are employed in agricultural sectors as agricultural laborers or cultivators and most of the females are illiterate. So, the lack of literacy of a female may compel her to work in the agricultural field and gender discrimination is the chief and root cause of low female work participation rates in the tribal communities²².

5.2 Female literacy and gender fertility rate:

Literacy is a good determinant for controlling the general fertility rate. There is an perfect negative correlation (r = -.943) that has been observed between female literacy and gender fertility rate among the tribal communities and this relationship is significant at the 0.01 level (2 – tailed) of significance (Table 4).

A literate woman is more conscious about their good health practices and they grab the tendency to live in better circumstances. As a result, an educated couple can do a plan of taking children off their desired family size. In the tribal community of West Bengal, the increase of the female literacy rate decreases the general fertility rate of women. The literacy of women is directly related to the delayed of marriage and better access and use of contraception. Educated women may learn how they can get the desire family size by schooling, knowledge gathering from the community or by global communications networks.

5.3 Female literacy and sex ratio:

Female literacy and sex ratio are not directly correlated. The increase of the female literacy rate may increase the sex ratio or may not increase the sex ratio of any population. Because literacy rate is not only the factor, there are several factors directly determining the number the female population in the tribal community. It has been observed that there is a negative correlation (r = -0.093) between these two variables and this relationship is insignificant at the 0.01 level (2 – tailed) of significance (Table 4).

It is to be noted that only female education can't change the thinking of male child preferences and the existing rate of female feticide may reduce the sex ratio in the patrilineal society ²³. But the education of females should be a vital determinant of controlling the sex ratio because a child first gets basic education from its mother. So female education educates the children and educates the whole community. Only education can decrease gender discrimination among tribal communities.

5.4 Female work participation rate and general fertility rate:

There is a positive correlation (r = .766) between female work participation rate and the general fertility rate of women and this relationship is significant at 0.01 level (2- tailed) of significance (Table 4). This indicates female work participation rate positively determines the general fertility rate of women among tribes of West Bengal. The positive shift to fertility increases the positive behavioral response of the female labor force participation rate which further increases labor per capita income. Wages of the females are an important determinant of taking fertility decisions of a couple and increased income of women has a substitution effect on fertility ²⁴.

Here, it is a noteworthy point that some tribes such as Savar tribe, Mal Pahariya tribe, Ho tribe, Mahali tribe, Bhumij tribe, Lodha tribe, Kora tribe, Bedia tribe and Santhal tribe have high female work participation rate and low female literacy rate but have high general fertility rate. While some tribes such as the Tamang tribe, Lepcha tribe, Limbu tribe and Mech tribe have a high literacy rate of females, low female work participation rate and low general fertility rate. So, the work participation rate of women always determines the general fertility rate of women.

5.5 Correlation between Female work Participation Rate and Sex Ratio:

It has been observed that most of the tribes of West Bengal have a high female work participation rate and a high sex ratio. There is a positive correlation (r =0.302) between these variables and this relationship is insignificant because only the female work participation rate can’t determine the sex ratio of the population (Table 4).

The principal ground of the positive relationship between female work participation rate and sex ratio is the high female population concentration (High sex ratio) in comparison to the males because women have to carry greater responsibility in the family’s livelihood which may increase the work participation rate. Higher the female population higher the female work participation rate in the community.

6. CONCLUSION:

From the above discussions on various indicators, it is cleared that the status of tribal women and gender inequality are very complex phenomena in the tribal communities because these two are very heterogeneous in the spatial dimension. In every tribal community, women have significant space within their families. But the tribal community is not free from gender discrimination like other communities as discussed.

Tribal groups are as much an integral part of society as any other groups in West Bengal. There is very common issue in every tribal society is the deprivation of tribal women in any social sphere. One thing that is very clear here is that just as mainstream women acknowledge social neglect and deprivation of social rights, tribal women can determine their lives with due respect and rights in tribal society. However, tribal women are no exception to the rule of gender inequality. Most of the tribal girls are still far from the light of education. Tribal women lag far behind other sections of society in terms of education. Tribal girls in today’s society still cannot go to school like that due to financial hardship of their parents. Many tribal girls still stop going to school for economic reasons. Tribal girls in villages far away from the city are still deprived of any medical treatment. They are also deprived of higher education. It is very important for the government of west Bengal and the government of India to look into all these issues. The government has to make many substantial efforts to improve the social and economic life of the tribal population. But the improvement approach should be region-specific and tribe specific. Education is the best developmental indicator of human resource development. The government should take special initiatives to increase the literacy rate of some tribe specific like Savar, Lodha, Mal Pahariya, etc. by improving school infrastructure and encouraging by providing job opportunities. The government should arrange some special camps in the back warded tribal communities to encourage them to grab opportunities and to aware of the importance of education and should provide economic opportunities to improve their social life. The government should also increase the awareness level of the tribal population about various existing government schemes.

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Received on 03.07.2021 Modified on 29.08.2021

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2022;13(1):1-11.

DOI: 10.52711/2321-5828.2022.00001

	Scheduled Tribe		All Population
Census Year	Male Work Participation rate	Female Work Participation rate	Male Work Participation rate	Female Work Participation rate
1961	58.48	41.55	53.98	9.43
1971	54.43	19.9	49.08	4.52
1981	56.16	37.08	51.13	8.87
1991	54.04	41.03	51.4	11.2
2001	53.8	43.7	54	18.3
2011	55.49	39.24	57.07	18.08

Indicators		Female Literacy	Female Work Participation Rate	General Fertility	Sex Ratio
Female Literacy	Pearson Correlation	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)
	N	17
Work Participation Rate	Pearson Correlation	-.794^**	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	000
	N	17	17
General Fertility	Pearson Correlation	-.943^**	.766^**	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	000	000
	N	17	17	17
Sex Ratio	Pearson Correlation	-0.093	0.302	-0.045	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	0.722	0.239	0.863
	N	17	17	17	17