Maternity Entitlements: Women's Rights Derailed

There is, thus, an urgent need for better recognition of the special needs of pregnancy, provision of maternity benefits in accordance with the law, and better support for pregnant women, including quality healthcare. [...]that law has been used to create a misleading perception, in some internation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEconomic and political weekly
Main Authors Drèze, Jean, Khera, Reetika, Somanchi, Anmol
Format Journal Article Magazine Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Mumbai Athena Information Solutions Pvt. Ltd 20.11.2021
Subjects
Births
Expenditures
Food security
Maternity & paternity leaves
Maternity benefits
Nursing
Pregnancy
Strikes
Women's rights
India
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Summary:There is, thus, an urgent need for better recognition of the special needs of pregnancy, provision of maternity benefits in accordance with the law, and better support for pregnant women, including quality healthcare. [...]that law has been used to create a misleading perception, in some international forums, that India has some of the most generous maternity leave provisions in the world. In 2013, maternity benefits became a legal entitlement of all Indian women (except those already receiving similar benefits as regular government employees or under other laws) under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), Section 4, which states that Every pregnant and lactating mother shall be entitled to [nutritious food and] maternity benefit of not less than rupees six thousand, in such instalments as may be prescribed by the Central Government. Since a random sample of size one makes little sense, we selected the districts purposely—mainly relatively deprived districts at a reasonable distance from Ambikapur (Chhattisgarh), our headquarters.8 In each district, two blocks were selected at random.
Bibliography:content type line 24
ObjectType-News-1
SourceType-Magazines-1
ISSN:0012-9976