Private space shrinking for married couples: NSSO

In urban parts, 58% of such couples had a room exclusively for them against 75.6% in 2008-09, says NSSO data

Overcrowding and overpopulation seem to have taken a toll on married couples, as they often find their private space invaded at homes, an official survey revealed.

There is a significant decline in the proportion of married couples who have a separate room in their house for them in 2012, revealed a survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO).

In 2012, about 60 per cent of married persons in rural areas had a separate room as compared to 75 per cent in 2009. The latest report was based on the 69th  round  of NSSO survey, covering a period between July and December 2012. The previous survey was based on the 65th NSSO round (between July 2008 and June 2009).

In urban areas, 58 per cent of such couples had a room exclusively for them against 75.6 per cent in 2008-09, the data showed.

According to the survey, a couple was considered “having a separate room even if they had to share the room with children of age 10 years or less”.

"Overcrowding has various adverse effects to leading a healthy and undisturbed life and hence is considered as an important problem to be addressed by urban planning," the survey said.

The situation is arising because more people are getting married in a family, said an NSSO official.

Experts said that even poor economic situation is one of the reasons for constraints in space. "The stagnation in economic growth and inflation has led to people look for inferior accommodations in a family as there is a decline in the quality of life," said Shaibal Gupta, a social scientist and founder member-secretary of Asian Development Research Institute, Patna.

Among urban parts of major states (with population of 20 million or above), married couples were worst hit in Maharashtra as only 51.1 per cent of the couples had an exclusive room for them. Across rural areas, in Karnataka, less than half the married couples (49 per cent) had a separate room, which was the lowest in rural parts of any other state.

The survey also pointed out that 47.4 per cent and 66 per cent of the married couples in rural and urban areas respectively had a separate kitchen in their houses. Whereas, the urban parts of Kerala (93.9 per cent) had the highest proportion of households with a separate kitchen, Bihar (24.9 per cent) had the lowest. This was similar in the urban counterparts as well as Kerala had 92 per cent of households with separate kitchen and Bihar had the lowest with only 42.2 per cent such people enjoying this facility.