Extent of marriage break-up and remarriages in India: revelation from Indian census and survey data

Ravi Prakash, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Sulabha Parasuraman, International Institute for Population Sciences

As the study on union formation took a major place in the socio-demographic literatures, adequate attention has not been given to the study of union dissolution through widowhood or divorce/ separation. This paper makes an attempt to analyse the extent of widowhood and mean age at the national level and sub-national level for the period 1971-2001 by sex and place of residence. Also, there is not much discussion on the extent of remarriage in India. No doubt, a prohibition on widow re-marriage was enforced among high caste people, but no such practice existed among lower and depressed castes and a handful proportion of population are still getting remarried. The paucity of information in this regard is one of the reasons for negligence of this topic. For this reason an attempt is made to study the widow and widower remarriage in India using census data and applying to a developed method.