ISSN : 2663-2187

Socioeconomic Profiles of Yanadi Tribal Pre-School Children: A study from South India

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G. Prameela, D. Sarada
ยป doi: 10.48047/AFJBS.6.12.2024.3687-3695

Abstract

The tribal standard of living condition is far below compared to non-tribal population with the chronic poor nutrition shows greater impact on the mother and child health. Demographic profiles information might be the best predictive tools to identify the lacuna and search for suitable intervention measures related to economic, social, nutrition and health perspectives. The present investigation was carried out at Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh among Yanadi tribal preschool children (3 to 6 years) as Yanadi sub-tribe represented the highest proportion of tribal population. The target group was further sub-divided into three age groups viz., 3 to 4 years (n=67), 4 to 5 years (n=67) and 5 to 6 years (n=66) with a sample size of 200 boys and 200 girls. Demographic profiles were collected using structured questionnaire on the important parameters such as age and gender of the child, educational and occupational status of mother, family income, type of the family and family size. The results clearly denoted that nearly half of mothers found to be illiterates of both boys (73.5%) and girls (76.5%) and maximum of about 71.5 per cent were engaged in daily wage works. The data on family income revealed that majority of the respondents belong to very low-income group of Rs. < 1,00,000(77.2%) followed by Rs 1,00,000 to 2,00,000 monthly family income(21.0%) and the least of about 1.8 per cent earned between Rs. 2,00,000 to 3,00,000. The important observation to be noted that none of them fall under high income group which might be focused for initiating income generating activities to enhance the condition of standard of living. The earlier joint family system prevailing was noticed to be shifted towards nuclear family (63.2%) as evidenced by only about one third of joint families (30.5%) and a smaller number of extended families (6.3%) with majority family size of 4 to 7 members. The findings well demonstrated a need for the plan of suitable nutrition intervention measures to mothers of tribal preschool children as the mothers were the primary caregivers.

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