Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In the last decade, the cases of violence against women in Punjab have witnessed an upsurge. Such are a reflection of a structural and institutional inequality that most women in India are facing. As per NITI Aayog’s SDG Index, the gender ratio in Punjab i.e the number of females per 1000 males is 886 in 2019 which is below the national average of the country (896). The skewed gender ratio along with other dwindling socio-economic parameters brings Punjab at the center of this issue. This study presents a critical analysis of poorly performing socio-economic indicators leading to economic stress and increased domestic violence cases in the state of Punjab. A comprehensive data-based study is conducted to study the relationship between domestic violence and other contributing factors such as literacy rate, gender ratio, poverty rate, unemployment rate, consumer price inflation, incidence of drug addiction, dowry demands, fertility rate, women empowerment, accessibility to the legal system and other social factors. The reflection of a highly patriarchal society and its detrimental effects on women can be interpreted from the statistics. The paper concludes with an observation that poorly performing socio economic indicators are responsible for the increasing number of domestic violence cases in the state of Punjab.