What are some of the major barriers urban Indian women face in owning land?

The acknowledgment that women have different needs than men and that culture-specific constraints limit women’s access and control over land and housing, has dawned quite recently in policy circles of developing countries. Consequently, these issues have acquired prominence in research in and on South Asia only in recent years. It has since been documented through multiple sources of evidence, mostly in the rural context in South Asia, that women’s ownership of land and housing provides vital security against poverty that other forms of income do not afford.

Since private ownership of landed property occupies a privileged position in the South Asian context, it has also been suggested by several researchers that property ownership strongly influences gender relations both within and outside the household. Basu (1999) writes that property often emerges as the cornerstone of women’s capacity to challenge numerous oppressors: the state, contractors, landlords, husbands and parents.

Despite such compelling evidence, governmental responses to women’s needs in South Asia have continued to concentrate largely on health, nutrition, and poverty alleviation schemes over gender-focused reform of landed property rights, legal literacy, and political equality. Despite compelling evidence and repeated assertions by scholars, of the fundamental value that property rights hold for women’s empowerment, governmental...

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