Challenges for single women in India

There is an intriguing article in the Christian Science Monitor about some of the challenges faced by single women in India, particularly for those who are independent enough to want to live on their own. It is apparently still somewhat rare for individual females to move out of their family home, so those that do often discover that landlords are reluctant to rent them an apartment.

It took Chiya Singh three months and seven real estate agents working in tandem to find an apartment to rent in New Delhi. The problem wasn’t her credit history or salary. It was her status as a single Indian woman. The questions blocking Ms. Singh from a room of her own were a bit personal, she says. Prospective landlords wanted to know why, at age 29, she wasn’t married and why, as a single person, she didn’t want to live with her parents.

“It was an exhausting process,” Singh says, of trying to find her own place after she divorced. “I became a broken record. They asked ‘Why do you want to live alone?’ I said, ‘Um, because I think I’m old enough.’ ”

That response usually netted Singh a cold expression and a vague “We’ll let you know” from the landlord.

Finding an apartment in any big city can be daunting, but in New Delhi, single Indian women face the added social expectation of living at home until they wed. Many young, middle-class, well-educated single Indian women, however, are overcoming family resistance only to run into suspicious landlords…

In less than a decade, the portion of middle-class women joining India’s workforce has jumped from 1 to 15 percent. While job opportunities have given women in the upper-middle class economic independence, it has not changed Indian society’s views about women, Ms. Addlakha says.

In Indian society, multiple generations often live under one roof with the eldest male serving as the head. Though it is increasingly acceptable for newlyweds to move out, single daughters are expected to stay home.

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