Situating Women in Urban Slums: Socio-economic Dataset from Slums in Lucknow, India

Tracking #: 863-1843

Authors:

	Name	ORCID
	anushree nagpal	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6366-7430
	abhra singh	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8489-3605
	Masood Ahsan Siddiqui	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7153-9156
	Mohammad Hashim	https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0231-0697

Responsible editor:

Victor de Boer

Submission Type:

Resource Paper

Abstract:

The present study provides field based socio-economic data of women slum dwellers in the city of Lucknow, the administrative capital of Uttar Pradesh, India. Being one of the most developed cities in Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow attracts a lot of migrants most of whom come for better economic opportunities and settle in the low-income neighbourhood of the city. Consequently, the number and population of slum colonies has grown simultaneously. In the present times, an increasing number of women migrate independently and are the principal wage earners for themselves and their families. However, since women come with limited job skills and other limited resources, many of them end up in urban slums wherein they remain at a disadvantage in terms of equitable access to work and other resources compared to their male counterparts. In order to draw a holistic picture of the status of female slum dwellers, an exhaustive socio-economic field survey (2020-21) for 240 women respondents, across a sample of 20 slum colonies was carried out, collecting data on 121 diverse aspects. This high granularity socio economic dataset can be used for carrying out interdisciplinary research as well as formulation and implementation of slum development and urban poverty alleviation programmes.

Manuscript:

ds-paper-863.docx

Supplementary Files (optional):

ds-supplementary-863-1404.docx

Previous Version:

Situating Women in Urban Slums: Socio-economic Dataset from Slums in Lucknow, India

Data repository URLs:

https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/2g6y7g24tw/2

Date of Submission:

Friday, August 2, 2024

Date of Decision:

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Nanopublication URLs:

Decision:

Solicited Reviews:

Review #1 submitted on 25/Oct/2024

Review Details

Reviewer has chosen to be Anonymous

Overall Impression: Average
Suggested Decision: Undecided
Technical Quality of the paper: Weak
Presentation: Good
Reviewer`s confidence: Medium
Significance: Moderate significance
Background: Reasonable
Novelty: Limited novelty
Data availability: All used and produced data (if any) are FAIR and openly available in established data repositories
Length of the manuscript: The length of this manuscript is about right

Summary of paper in a few sentences (summary of changes and improvements for second round reviews):

The paper provides field based socio-economic data of women slum dwellers in the city of Lucknow. I appreciate the authors addressing my concerns/comments.

Reasons to accept:

The dataset is important for follow up research.

Reasons to reject:

While the data is important its really a dataset being presented in the end with no really analysis.

Nanopublication comments:

I leave this up to the journal's Editor to determine if the production of a dataset meets the requirement for incorporation into this journal.

Further comments:

Review #2 submitted on 05/Nov/2024

Review Details

Reviewer has chosen to be Anonymous

Overall Impression: Good
Suggested Decision: Accept
Technical Quality of the paper: Good
Presentation: Good
Reviewer`s confidence: Medium
Significance: Moderate significance
Background: Comprehensive
Novelty: Limited novelty
Data availability: All used and produced data (if any) are FAIR and openly available in established data repositories
Length of the manuscript: The length of this manuscript is about right

Summary of paper in a few sentences (summary of changes and improvements for second round reviews):

The authors have worked well on addressing a few of my comments and for other comments, I have received their arguments. Now the paper has a Conclusion section and Limitations have been added as a separate section. I have a couple of comments in response to these changes which are being stated below.

Reasons to accept:

- The paper is written well.
- The dataset has been diligently collected and good scientific practices have been observed.

Reasons to reject:

Nanopublication comments:

Further comments:

Below are a couple of comments that I want authors to address before the paper is being published:

- While the paper provides valuable socio-economic data, it may not align directly with the Data Science journal’s focus. Authors said in their response that "... Even if they [social scientists] study the society and are different from the fundamental science in a lot of ways, the social sciences are 'science' too",. I agree with this point surely but to be relevant to the Data Science journal, I will still like to see that authors motivate the relevance to Data Science audience. For instance, highlight the potential use of this data to be used for predictive analytics for urban planning or poverty reduction. Or maybe how the NGOs and other civil society rights organisations can use the data to highlight gaps in gender equality, health, and socio-economic inclusion in urban areas. Without such concrete suggestions, the real value of dataset cannot be understood.

- About "Limitations of the Study" section: I only find the third limitation (time and finances limitation) to be really a limitation of the study. The first two are actually challenges faced in the study. If authors consider first two also as limitations, I will ask them to illustrate how these two challenges limited or affected the results of the study and how those limitations were mitigated. Or if there are any future directions planned to address such challenges. I see that the subsection "The questionnaire" states some limitations about human and cultural bias and the strategies used to overcome those biases. It can be an idea to merge all the limitations here as a sub-section as it feels better for the reading flow.

- Authors have added the Conclusion section now so there is no abrupt ending to the paper now, thanks for that.

RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS

All queries by the reviewers have been duly acknowledged and appropriate modifications/changes have been made.

2 Comments

Response to the queries raised by the esteemed reviewers

Submitted by anushree nagpal on Mon, 09/16/2024 - 10:46

Dear Victor de Boer, editors-in-chief and reviewers, We would like to thank you for the thoughtful comments regarding our manuscript entitled 'Situating Women in the Urban Slums: Socio economic dataset from the slums in Lucknow, India'
' (#863-1843). The following are the responses to the queries raised by the reviewers-

Reviewer 1

#- The paper lacks a relevance for this journal.

Response- The journal is about data science and I believe, data from social sciences are also equally welcomed. Even if they study the society and are different from the fundamental science in a lot of ways, the social sciences are 'science' too because the researchers follow standard research methods and procedures while collecting the data and drawing and reporting the conclusions.

#Is the paper suggesting to use this dataset to solve problems in slums through some technological solutions? The paper needs to clarify this point.

Response- No, the paper is not suggesting the use of any technology to solve the issues reported during the study. However, the data attached, can provide useful insights for various poverty alleviation and slum development programme run by the local/ state government.

#- The paper does not contain a discussion regarding the insights from data.

Response- Insights from the data have been discussed in the concluding section of the paper

#- There are no limitations discussed for the work performed. Such a work can be impacted by a self bias, background knowledge and other human aspects between interviewer and interviewee.

Response- A section on the limitations of the study has been duly added towards the end of the manuscript. Scientific methods adopted as a part of the data collection methodology, to completely avoid any biases such the researcher bias have been mentioned in the methodology section of the manuscript.

#- The paper ends abruptly without concluding, lacking a proper take away message for the reader.

Response- A conclusion section has been duly added towards the end of the manuscript.

Reviewer 2

# For several variables in the curated dataset, most have NA values. I’m wondering if these are then applicable, or should they be removed altogether.

Response- N.A. values cannot be removed as that would tantamount to making calculations for the entire dataset. The data would not remain its 'raw' form at all.

#• I’m missing a summary section following a summary of the data. The paper ends quite abruptly. Even though the focus is on producing a dataset, this is still an academic journal.

Response- A conclusion section has been duly added at the end of the paper.

#Introduction

• Could be bolstered with additional support from the literature.

Response- Additional references have been added.

#• Units are in lakhs – while this is ok for India and similar countries around in terms of readership, it’s less likely that a lot of other countries’ readers will immediately be familiar with this measure. I suggest changing this to a more relatable unit for wider readership.

Response- Changes have been made widely familiar units have been used.

#Methods

• The sentence of the first paragraph seems more fitting towards the end of the Introduction section
• This section is about the value of data really has nothing to do with methodology. In here one would expect to see survey methods etc. I think all of these points fit better within the remit of the Data section, or can be woven into the Introduction section.

Response- Suggested changes have been duly made.

#Sampling procedure
• “For the selection of wards, initially, the slum colonies were put in descending order of their population size. Arithmetic mean of the whole distribution was then computed which led to its classification into two groups. The mean of each of the two groups further led to creation of four groups with lesser intervals.”
o I’m not sure how the two groups were created based in the mean. Was it one group within one standard deviation from the mean and the second group everything beyond this? A more information is needed,

Response- These points have been clarified at length in the methodology section of the paper

#Data collection and survey execution

• I was wondering if there was a specific reason for the data being collected at two different time windows, that i.e., March to May, and August to October? I think some statement should be made here, whether it be due to resource limitations, requirement for support from safai navaks, etc. Or a the very least a statement should be made with respect to changes in slum population across these two time windows so users of the data can understand fitness for their specific uses.

Response- The specific months were chosen as these are most suitable in terms of weather to be carrying out a door to door field survey. In northern India, summer temperatures during late May, June, July go as high as 49 degrees Celsius while the winter temperatures drop up to 7 degrees Celsius.

Further, interaction with 'safayi nayaks' or sanitatary inspectors gave the researchers a wealth of qualitative information which helped a great deal in understanding the context of the responses given by the interviewees during the survey.

#• How were the specific primary variables decided? One could argue that other data may have been more relevant. We’re these based on specific themes, secondary data availability, etc.?

Response- Variables like age, literacy, religion, types of occupation, monthly income/expenditure, are a regular feature of any socioeconomic survey. Other variables like those dealing with reproduction &contraception, autonomy in decision making, violence, have been taken from the questionnaire of the National Family Health Survey, conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India. These details have also been mentioned in the methodology section of the manuscript.

#o Being unfamiliar with minorities with the caste system, I don’t what this means. Can some examples of minorities castes be provided? Or a link to additional information?
o “…followed by SC and ST communities” – What are SC and ST relating to here?

Response- SCs and STs refer to the scheduled class and scheduled tribe communities. These communities consist of people belonging to certain oppressed, discriminated and backward castes, are a part of minority population in India. The Constitution of India protects the people with minority status with certain rights and privileges like reservation of seats in employment and education sectors. These minority communities are spread across different states of the country in varying proportions. An example of scheduled class in the state of Uttar Pradesh is the 'Mallah' or the boatmen community.

meta-review by editor

Submitted by Tobias Kuhn on Wed, 11/06/2024 - 07:38

The reviewers agree that the dataset is potentially very useful and interesting and that most of the issues identified have been addressed adequately. There remain some small remarks regarding the positioning towards the Data Science community and the limitations section, which we ask you to address in the final version that will be published by the journal.

Victor de Boer (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9079-039X)