• Almost 22% of the population in India is below its official poverty limit, making this a major obstacle for education of girls. Parents facing economic difficulties respond by removing their daughters from school. Girls are expected to take over household chores or work in the fields to support the family. Some are even forced in to child labor where they are exploited.
  • The majority of Indian people live in villages, where most of the domestic roles are consciously or subconsciously assumed by women. The potential of women’s active economic role through engagement in, for example, the entrepreneurial or formal sector is grossly undermined. Poor families are doubly affected by this sort of conservative outlook – the opportunity to tap domestically available human resource for income earning is lost; and women’s domestic role continues to be devalued with the consequence that the family remains unable to escape from the poverty trap and support the schooling of daughters.