Ladka Ladki Ek Barabar? Gender Ideology Among Young Adolescents Through Adulthood in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh

Institutional and cultural norms, particularly in developing countries, are such that women typically have access to less resources and face discrimination right from their birth (in some instances, even before their birth) to death. Such norms tend to be sticky and are not easily dismantled with modernization or economic progress. To be able to meet the goals of gender equity as articulated in Sustainable Development Goal 5, it is essential to gain a deeper understanding of these gender norms. It is against this backdrop that we examine gender ideology among young adolescents in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh using the two waves (2015–16 and 2018) of the UDAYA data by the Population Council. Specifically, we ask the following questions: What is the gender ideology of adolescents in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh? Is there a difference in ideology between young (10–14 years) and old (15–19 years) adolescents? Do boys and girls have different gender ideologies? How do religion, caste, class, and location along with the adolescent’s family of origin mediate the construction of gender? We draw on intersectional and life course perspective theoretical frameworks and employ multivariate regression technique for our analysis.