Background and Objective

In 2011, nearly half of the households in India had not accessed drinking water sources in their household premises. In this context, the question arises: who is playing an important role (a male or female household member) in fetching drinking water in those households where the availability of drinking water is inadequate? Is there any gender difference in this practice? Against this backdrop, the study aims to outline the proportion of households from various sociodemographic, economic, and regional backgrounds where women are playing the main role of collecting water. The study also focuses on identifying the backgrounds determining the role of women as household water collectors in India.

Methodology

We used the 69th round of NSS (National Sample Survey 2012) data for this study. We employed the chi-square test to access the heterogeneity in the proportion of households where women are responsible for water collection among different sociodemographic, community-level, and regional backgrounds. Besides, we used a binary logistic regression model to outline the impact of different backgrounds on women’s responsibility for collecting drinking water in India.

Results

The results showed women fetch drinking water in more than 80% of the households that did not have drinking water sources within their premises. We outlined the significant role of social groups, the education level of male household members, the principal occupation of the households, the distance to the drinking water sources, the household head’s gender, land ownership, and place of residence as the determinants of this responsibility of women in India.

Conclusion

We propose constructing the necessary infrastructure to ensure that everyone has access to safe drinking water. This will not only reduce the issues of the water crisis (SDG 06) and the enormous burden in Indian women (SDG 5).

中文翻译：

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女性取水者：分析印度女性在取水中的作用

背景和目标

2011 年，印度近一半的家庭无法在家中获得饮用水源。在这种情况下，问题出现了：谁在饮用水供应不足的家庭中扮演重要角色（男性或女性家庭成员）取饮用水？这种做法有性别差异吗？在此背景下，该研究旨在概述来自不同社会人口、经济和区域背景的家庭中女性在取水方面发挥主要作用的比例。该研究还侧重于确定决定女性在印度担任家庭集水工角色的背景。

方法

本研究使用第 69 轮 NSS（2012 年全国抽样调查）数据。我们采用卡方检验来了解不同社会人口、社区层面和区域背景中女性负责取水的家庭比例的异质性。此外，我们使用二元逻辑回归模型来概述不同背景对印度女性收集饮用水的责任的影响。

结果

结果显示，在 80% 以上的房屋内没有饮用水源的家庭中，女性负责取饮用水。我们概述了社会群体的重要作用、男性家庭成员的教育水平、家庭的主要职业、与饮用水源的距离、户主的性别、土地所有权和居住地作为这一责任的决定因素的印度妇女。

结论

我们建议建设必要的基础设施，以确保每个人都能获得安全的饮用水。这不仅会减轻水危机（SDG 06）和印度妇女的巨大负担（SDG 5）等问题。