Demographic Change and the Transformation of Tribal Family Systems in Post-Liberalization India: Gender, Migration, and Household Restructuring

Abstract

Indian tribes have traditionally had specific family and demographic structures that are part of their kinship structure, clan organization, and lifestyle. These traditional family systems were not only acting as residential groups, but were also important social institutions with an economic function, providing social protection, cultural transmission and collective identity. But this post-liberalization phase in India, after the economic reforms of 1991, has brought an important change in the demographic and social trends of the tribal communities. The rise of market-oriented development, encroaching of the state and corporate sectors in tribal zones and a rapid urbanization and industrialization have together transformed the patterns of demography and family organization of tribal peoples.The present study explores the intricate nexus between demographic change, migration and gender transformation as they impact tribal family system changes in post-liberalization India. The paper examines the trends in fertility decline, mortality improvement, age structure change and increasing life expectancy among tribal people with the help of secondary data from Census of India, National Family Health Survey (NFHS), National Sample Survey (NSS) and existing sociological and anthropological literature. These demographic changes are related to more mobility, especially from rural to urban areas and seasonal labor migration, which has created more changes in the composition of households, care networks, and intergenerational relationships.These results suggest that there is a continuous shift from joint or extended family forms to nuclear and semi-nuclear family forms when relating to nuclear and semi-nuclear households, particularly in areas with greater levels of migration and market integration. Migration has been identified as one of the main drivers for household disintegration, resulting in an increasing number of women, children and the elderly remaining in their villages of origin and working-age people living in other villages. This has caused a reconfiguration of domestic tasks and redefinition of the roles of the family. Yet, there are also signs of the changing nature of gender roles in tribal households. The participation of women in wage labour, education, and decision-making has increased in some settings, while traditional gender patterns of division of labour are being re-negotiated in the context of economic pressures and evolving social norms.