FOCUS NATION Santosh Kumar Mohapatra
The country has a long way to go in fulfilling the commitments made at the Beijing Conference on Gender Equality
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Working towards more gender-equal participation in the economy will pay off by way of strong economic growth. However, this requires addressing gender injustice on a priority basis
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Although the Indian Constitution has granted men and women equal rights, gender disparity persists. Despite high rates of economic growth, woman is still seen as a lesser being. India remains at the bottom of the Human Development Index (HDI) and ranks abysmally low in gender equity. It is time we speak less and work more to change the scenario for the better.
India finds itself at a low of 129 in a ranking of 148 countries in Gender Inequality Index 2014 — that captures “the loss of achievement due to gender inequality in dimensions of reproductive health, empowerment and labour market participation.” In fact, among the South Asian countries, India is placed second from the bottom — just above Afghanistan. Sadly, Orissa has missed the bus too. According to the latest report on `Gendering HDI: Recasting Gender Development and Gender Empowerment Measure for India,’ Orissa ranks low in the index of Gender Development and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). Prepared by the Indian Institute of Public Administration for the Union ministry of women and child development, the report puts Orissa at 31st and 28th positions in these two respects, out of the 35 states and Union Territories. The state fails to perform creditably in any of the components like health index (HI), education development index (EDI) and yearly income Index (YI) that together constituted the Gender Development Index (GDI).
Gender inequality in India with participation of women in employment and decision-making remains far less than that of men. The disparity, rather inequality, is not likely to be eliminated in the near future. Discrimination starts even before birth, when a strong societal preference for the male child often leads to the abortion of female foetuses. If the female foetus survives and the girl child is not killed at birth, a lifetime of unfair treatment awaits the survivor.
India’s poor performance on gender equality is reflected in many indicators, the most telling of which is the overall sex ratio, which has in some parts of the country plummeted to 833 females per 1,000 males — as against the national average of 940 per 1,000 males in 2011. The same is the scene in Orissa too. A study made by the author personally on the demographic profile of 300 salaried individuals pertaining to all incomes, cadres and sectors spread over the twin cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar, projects a dismal overall sex ratio. The overall sex ratio is found to be in the ratio of 859 female children per 1000 male children. More surprisingly, salaried class is equally keen on having male child despite having higher education.
Girls also continue to be far behind boys in school enrolment. Although literacy rates are escalating, female literacy rate lags behind male literacy rate. Literacy for females stands at 65.46 per cent, compared to 82.14 per cent for males. A fundamental factor for such low literacy rates is parents’ perception that education for girls is a waste of resources as their daughters would ultimately live with their husbands’ families, and the girl’s family will not benefit directly from the investment made in education.
Girls in the age-group of 15 and 19 are twice as likely as older women to die in childbirth. Babies born to young mothers are not only more likely to die as children but also more liable to weigh less when they are born. And babies that start with a low birth weight are less likely to achieve their full potential when they grow up. Excessive craving for sons often results in young mothers being forced to have another pregnancy soon after giving birth to a daughter. Women need to be able to space their pregnancies several years apart if they want to keep themselves and their newborns healthy.
India’s high rates of child marriage are one reason why there is a higher risk of maternal deaths here. The nation accounts for the highest number of maternal deaths in the world — 17 per cent or nearly 50,000 of the 2.89lakh women who died as a result of complications due to pregnancy or childbearing in 2013. World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that India’s MMR, which was 560 in 1990, reduced to 178 vis-a-vis 7,300 births in developed nations in 2010-2012.
Since 2006, the World Economic Forum has introduced gender gap index, a framework for capturing the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress. India has also performed abysmally in eliminating gender-based disparities, ranking 114 out of 142 countries in World Economic Forum’s 2014 gender gap index. India slipped 13 spots from its last year’s ranking of 101 on the Gender Gap Index. India has also scored below average on parameters like economic participation, educational attainment and health and survival.
India experienced a drop (n absolute and relative value) on the health and survival sub-index compared with 2006, mainly due to a decrease in the female-to-male sex ratio at birth. On economic participation and opportunity, India ranks 134, while on educational attainment it ranks 126. But on the health and survival parameter, India’s rank is among the lowest at 142. Owing to its low sex ratio at birth, India sprawled to 114th position overall, which makes it the lowest-ranked BRICS nation and one of the few countries where female labour force participation is shrinking. India has one of the lowest percentages of firms with female participation in ownership
On the positive side, India is among the top 20 best-performing countries on the political empowerment sub index. India ranked remarkable at 15. It is the highest-ranked country on the years with female head of state (over the past 50 years) indicator. There is also facts from India that would indicate women in local government roles make decisions with better results for communities than men do when entrusted with budget decisions. They also appear to be more adroit and dexterous representatives than men, acquiring more resources for their constituencies despite having lower education and little experience.
However, such display of women’s empowerment here does not reveal the clear picture. While around 50 per cent of our electorate is women, their current representation in Parliament is just about 11 per cent. The global average of female representation in legislative bodies is over 21 per cent. We have miles to go in this respect too.
After Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister, he made it clear that his vision for India’s future has women and the girl child being on equal terms with their male counterparts. He initiated the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme earlier this year, in order to send out a powerful message to the nation that the future of India depends on justice for the girl child. Yet, he did little for the uplift of women or in addressing gender injustice. The country has to go a long way to fulfill the commitments made at the Beijing Conference on Gender Equality.
By contrast, populist schemes like the Beti Bachao campaign have not received matching budgetary allocations. Rather, the total spending on women and child development has been cut. As per finance minister Jaitley’s budget speech, Rs. 10,351crore had been allocated to women and child development in 2015-2016, which is much lower than that of the last fiscal. The last fiscal, Rs. 18,355crore had been spent by the ministry of women and child development as also states and Union Territories. Budgetary allocation for child welfare has declined from Rs. 81,075.26crore in 2014-2015 to Rs. 57,918.51crore. It is alleged that there had been a Rs. 20,000crore cut across all ministries when it came to the women welfare. The total ‘gender budget’ had decreased from 4.19 per cent of the total expenditure in 2014-2015 to 3.71 per cent in 2015-2016.
No nation can progress and prosper by ignoring the other half. To quote former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan:“When women thrive, all of society benefits, and succeeding generations are given a better start in life.” Working towards more gender-equal participation in the economy will pay off by way of strong economic growth. However, this requires addressing gender injustice, or gender inequality, on a priority basis.