Chennai Becomes The Top Women Friendly City In India, Reveals A Survey

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There are over 4,400 statutory towns and cities in India with around 40 crores of inhabitants today, says National Urban Digital Mission (NUDM) data. 48.4% of the population in India consists of females according to World Bank. And here is why it is important that we bookmark this data.

A recent survey, 'Viewport 2022 - Top Cities for Women in India,' revealed that women prefer to live and work more in South Indian cities rather than in North Indian ones. The research was done by a firm called Avtar, which is a diversity, equity, and inclusion solutions firm.

783 women in 111 cities including tier-1, 2 and 3 cities were questioned for this survey and the weightage was applied to the social inclusion score and the industrial inclusion score, with women weighing social inclusion aspects including ease of living, safety and city amenities at 80 percent and availability of job opportunities at 20 percent (transcending this weightage to the industrial inclusion score).

Top Preferred Town/City For Women To Live And Work In

In a nation that has a population of over a million, the top cities that females prefer are Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Visakhapatnam, Kolkata, Coimbatore, and Madurai. The same report also revealed that Tiruchirappalli, Vellore, Erode, Salem, Tirupur, Puducherry, Shimla, Mangalore, Thiruvananthapuram and Belagavi are the most prefered places in smaller towns that consist of a population of less than 1 million.

The data showed that tier-2 and 3 cities, which make up the less-than-a-million category, have comparatively higher scores for averages as well as for the sub-dimensions. Of the 111 cities indexed, only 47 were found to be above the national average of 37.75. In other words, almost 58 percent of the cities in the study fared lower than the national average, which itself is about 12 points less than the median of 50.

The list also mentions that most of the cities/towns that women preferred to work or live in are in Tamil Nadu. Chennai topped the million-plus population category with a score of 78.41, while in the smaller towns, Tiruchirappalli was No. 1 with a score of 71.61, mentions the same report.

All the top five cities in the list from the southern states, while 3 cities in Tamil Nadu made it to top 10 among towns that has a population of less than a million. Delhi scored 41.36 and scored 14th, which means it didn't feature in the top 10 preferred cities for women.

The capital cities of the states and union territories that made it to the top 25 list from both categories were from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Odisha.

Even if you turn the pages of history, the south Indian cities have been more supportive of women, says the founder of Avtar, Saundarya Rajesh in an interview with Money Control.

'Historically, the northern states were constantly subject to war and life-altering events. There was a constant fight for survival for residents of these cities. The southern states were comparatively peaceful. Childcare systems such as aanganwadis focusing on creating a support system for working mothers date back to the Chola era. There's a historical context to why southern cities are friendlier for women,' she added.

Further, she mentioned that it is the policymakers who need to probe deeper, identify the barriers and address the challenges related to women in order to make cities and towns women friendly.

According to the United Nations, women friendly cities are the ones that have proper access to health, employment opportunities, education and a compact urban social service and safety. Also, it is in these cities were the local government is completely aware of the women issues and addresses it efficiently.