Jains have highest number of unmarried women in their 20s

NEW DELHI: Jains have the highest proportion of unmarried women in the 20-29 age group while Muslims have the lowest, census data released on Wednesday showed.

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Religion-wise marital status data showed that only 7.4% of the Muslim women were unmarried in this age group, compared to 19% among Jains. Hindus fared only slightly higher than Muslims, with 8.1% unmarried women.

According to the data based on the 2011 decadal headcount, the national average of unmarried women in the age group stood at 8.4%. A low proportion of unmarried women in their twenties could mean that women are being married off before they can get a chance at pursuing professional opportunities for a variety of reasons.

Notably, the Jain community is the most literate among all the others in North India.

Males in the 20-29 age group fare better than females, with as many as 17.5% males remaining unmarried at the national level.

All religions reflect a similar pattern. Among Jains, every fourth man (25.9%) in his twenties is unmarried, followed by Buddhists (22.9%), Christians (21.4%), Sikhs (20.9%) and Hindus (17.5%). Muslims remained the worst on this metric, with only 15.9% of the men in this age bracket remaining unmarried.

Buddhists, however, reported the highest proportion of broken marriages. According to the census report, 0.75% of the Buddhists across all age groups said they were either divorced or separated from their spouse. Christians followed closely at 0.69%.

Jains had the lowest proportion of broken marriages (0.35%), followed by Muslims (0.35%) and Hindus as well as Sikhs (0.4%).