national average of total joint or outright female ownership of 15.37 percent, 13.98 percent were outright female ownership.

Table 1: Proportion of households who own their home, including disaggregation for female ownership (%), in select Indian states

||**% of households who**<br>**own their house or any**<br>**other house**|**% of households where a**<br>**female member of the**<br>**household owns the**<br>**main dwelling or any**<br>**other dwelling, either**<br>**outright or jointly with**<br>**someone else**|**% of households where a**<br>**female member of the**<br>**household owns the**<br>**main dwelling or any**<br>**other dwelling outright**|
|---|---|---|---|
|Delhi|67.15|27.40|24.50|
|Gujarat|80.40|12.21|11.32|
|Karnataka|68.75|23.14|22.26|
|Maharashtra|78.89|16.54|15.24|
|Odisha|83.66|10.23|9.65|
|India - national|79.85|15.37|13.98|

_Source:_ National Family Health Survey 2015–16, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).

At the time of writing, raw data for the more recent release of NFHS data (2019–20) was not yet available. However, the fact sheets so far released reveal figures on home and/or land ownership by females (aged 15–49), either alone or jointly. As shown in Table 2, this data suggests a growing incidence of property and/or land ownership among females (aged 15–49) for some states overall and for urban areas within states. For example, as per NFHS 2019–2020, the share of the property or land claimed as owned by females<sup>6</sup> in Karnataka increased by about 15.8 percentage point to 67.7 percent in comparison to 2015– 2016. In urban Karnataka, this increase was almost 20 percentage points. Likewise, NFHS reports an increased share of females owning property and land in Gujarat; in 2019–2020, the share of females owning property or land was 42.6 percent, an increase of about 15 percentage points in comparison to 2015–2016 data. However, data for Maharashtra, Delhi, and Odisha all show a decrease in female ownership between 2015–16 and 2019–20 of between 11 and 20 percentage points, as shown in Table 2. The overall picture for India and urban India shows a small increase in female property and land ownership over this five-year period, with a slightly larger overall increase in female ownership in rural areas. Across the states mentioned, and in India overall, ownership is highest in rural areas, though the gap is narrowing in some places, such as Karnataka.

Table 2: Proportion of females (aged 15–49) owning a house and/or land _(_ alone or jointly with others) (%), in select Indian states

|**Geography**||**2019**–**20**|||**2015**–**16**||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**Urban**|**Rural**|**Total**|**Urban**|**Rural**|**Total**|
|Karnataka|64.5|69.7|67.6|45.1|57.5|51.8|
|Maharashtra|21.1|24.5|22.9|35.2|33.3|34.3|
|Odisha|35.4|45.5|43.5|56.8|65.2|63.5|
|Gujarat|41.6|43.3|42.6|29.7|25.2|27.2|

> 6. NFHS defines women property ownership as follows: Percent of women owning a house and/or land (alone or jointly with others). Source: National Family Health Survey, India, conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, with the International Institute for Population Sciences serving as the nodal agency.

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