Improving Gender Equality in India and Beyond: Anju Malhotra

“I see the promise of the next generation reflected in conversation with mothers who desperately want their daughters to not face the same challenges they have themselves faced in their lives.”

Dr. Anju Malhotra, a demographer by training, has worked most of her life improving the health, well-being, and empowerment of women and girls around the world. Born in Punjab, India, her career is a commitment to improving gender equality in India and beyond.

“If you are a woman from South Asia, awareness of women’s unequal position is in your bones. Even though I grew up and lived in the US since age 11, growing up in India that first decade of my life has ingrained a deep sensitivity and desired to overcome the injustices women and girls and face everywhere, but especially in the Subcontinent. I can never forget that I was born in Kapurthala, the district with the worst sex ratio at birth in India.”

Malhotra chose to do a Ph.D. demography in part motivated by the ambition to understand and support positive outcomes from the shifting population dynamics in India. An important area of her work has been to advance sexual and reproductive health in adolescents, especially girls and young women so that early marriage, pregnancy, anemia, and malnutrition do not limit their life opportunities. Through a combination of health, education, and social change interventions and impact evaluations in collaboration with NGOs and the governments in Bihar and Jharkhand, she helped advance family, social, and government support to invest in girls during the critical teen years.

“I’m most excited and inspired when I am working in the field and connecting with people. Being able to relate to the experiences of the communities, women, and girls in particular, makes my work real and grounded,” she explained. “Talking with girls and boys to discuss their views and aspirations for life is one of the most important learning experiences. They’ll hopefully accelerate the change needed for millions of girls and women who are still trapped by tradition and poverty. I see the promise of the next generation reflected in conversations I have with mothers, who desperately want their daughters to not face the same challenges they have themselves faced in their lives.”

“One-third of all girls married as children are in India.”

Since the late 1990’s, Dr. Malhotra has built the evidence base and networks across countries and institutions to grow a movement to end child marriage (marriage under the age of 18). In 2012 she moved from the International Center for Research on Women to lead UNICEF’s global work on gender equality, where she was able to accelerate this movement and support the adoption of a dedicated target in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end child marriage.

“We know that most girls don’t actually want to get married early. They want to go to school, complete their education, and have a chance at life. We also know that if they do get married early, they almost certainly have an early birth, which is very risky in terms of health outcomes for them and their baby. But it also then cements their situation as dependents in the family, having to take on the burden of taking care of these children, one after the other,” she said.

India has been a showcase country in the global program, demonstrating how large scale change can happen when the government, community, and NGO’s come together to prioritize investment in girls’ health and education. She notes that when intention, effort and funding align, there can be remarkable results.

“Throughout India, the rates for girls’ education have gone up tremendously, especially in secondary schooling over the years, and early marriage rates have come down very substantially, from 49% in 2001 to 23%, in 2021” she said. “It halved in the last two decades, and that had a lot to do with activism and initiative on the part of Indian civil society and government schemes that were investing in girls.”

But because India’s population is so large, the country carried one-third the global burden of married girls, despite the significant progress on this issue. “India’s population makes it a very heavy weight in global statistics on any issue, so it can be a real leader in showing others how improvements can happen,” she explained.

“India has no shortage of brilliant people, and it is inspiring and exciting to work with people who are so capable.”

Malhotra notes that India has been one of the first countries to adopt and improve an adolescent health policy but rolling it out requires serious support in terms of financial and human resource commitments from the government, research institutes, and civil society for it to have significant impact. Improving adolescent health requires not only increased awareness, but also improved services.

Malhotra’s current work with the World Bank and the Global Financing Facilities focuses on improving gender equitable investments and measurement to improve primary health care systems that can deliver on quality healthcare for women, children, and adolescents. “One of the main issues is that we need more women leaders in the health field, and we need health systems and services to be supportive of women as both the primary consumers and providers of health care.”.

“India is exciting because so much change is happening and so much change is possible. Indian civil society is very active, and there’s a lot of capacity in India to really shift the needle on more proactively prioritizing women’s and girls’ needs, choices, and decision-making power. There are a lot of institutes that are working hard and it’s a terrific place to try to make improvements,” she said. “India has shown a lot of progress on many of these fronts, and it can be a leader in showing other countries how to address the challenges facing women and girls.”