Impact of Literacy on Female Age of Marriage of Scheduled Tribe Community in Siliguri Sub-division, West Bengal, India

Abstract

Literacy is a key indicator of the socio-economic progression of an individual as well as of a society. A literate person always is a better respondent to the socio-economic events than an illiterate person in the society. The female age of marriage is also an important indicator for a sustainable and healthy society. As the tribal community is one of the most primitive communities in the society, these two parameters play a very important role towards their socio-economic as well as towards the overall development. The research work has done based on the primary data collected from the study area Siliguri sub-division, West Bengal, India. The objective of the research work is to find out the literacy status of the tribal females and also to find out the impact of literacy on the female age of marriage. To compare the tribal female literacy status with that of the tribal male literacy, Disparity Index has been prepared from the primary data. This gives a clear indication towards the presence of gender disparity in literacy in the study area. The overall tribal female literacy is clearly at far behind than tribal male literacy. The research also shows a ray of hope in terms of a huge improvement to mitigate this disparity in recent times. The data shows presence of child marriage in the tribal community of Siliguri sub-division. Analyzing the primary data, it is found that the child marriage is happening more frequently for illiterate tribal females than that of the literate one. So, clearly the impact of literacy on female age of marriage stands out.