Socioeconomic pressures play a key role in most cases, forcing women to take on caring roles within the family.
Organ donation is considered a noble cause, as it helps save lives and helps many people overcome their disabilities. However, Gender disparity in India It is a common reason why most women do not have equal access to life-saving surgeries. According to the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), four out of five organ recipients in India between 1995 and 2021 have been men.
Moreover, 80 per cent of the country’s living organ donors are women, mostly wives, mothers and daughters of those seeking organs. This not only indicates a complex interplay of patriarchal social mindsets that are deeply rooted in India, but also exposes gender preferences and economic roles played by both men and women.
Why are organ donors mostly women?
“Socio-economic pressures play a pivotal role in most cases, forcing women to take on caregiving roles within the family. The social conditioning that has been going on since childhood in our country paves the way for this disparity. In most households, gender roles are set in a way that male members are the primary breadwinners of the family, while women are the caregivers,” Dr Jaya Agarwal, Assistant Professor, Solid Organ Transplantation, Amrita Hospital, told Times Now.
According to Dr Agarwal, societal expectations are too heavy for women. “These dynamics of traditional upbringing and societal expectations force women to come forward as organ donors in most cases, perpetuating this imbalance,” she added.
NOTTO data also indicate that for every woman who underwent an organ transplant during the stipulated period, men were the most likely to do so. That is, of the 36,640 donations during this period, only 6,945, or 18.9 percent, were female recipients.
The guilt of the breadwinner
The data draw attention to the “breadwinner’s dilemma,” which makes men more reluctant to be organ donors. Since men are the sole breadwinners in the family, doctors say there is a greater sense of responsibility among family members, especially women, to donate their organs for men.
“Women are expected to be emotionally generous, especially when their loved one is suffering. It is a psychological dilemma for female family members, compounded by social expectations that force them to come forward as organ donors,” said Dr Agarwal.
“This phenomenon highlights the implicit bias against women’s well-being and health that continues to exist within the family structure.
Organ donation affects women’s health
Organ donation, although safe in the long term, can be physically and emotionally stressful for women if they have been forced to do it.
According to alarming statistics, most women in India suffer from anaemia and malnutrition. According to a 2022 survey by the National Family Health Survey, 182.9 million people are undernourished in the country, most of them women and children. An increase in anaemia has been recorded in several states among women between the ages of 15 and 49. Therefore, organ donation, being a complex surgery, can have negative and long-lasting effects on the donor.
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