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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Focus on the causes of the gender gap, rather than on the outcomes

Focus on the causes of the gender gap, rather than on the outcomes

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published Published on Oct 14, 2011   modified Modified on Oct 14, 2011

-The Economic Times

 

When it comes to Indian women, the picture is largely unchanged; depressingly so, going by the World Development Report 2012, released by the Bank on Wednesday. The latest report focusing on Gender Equality and Development makes dismal reading. No doubt the lot of women in India has improved over the years but not commensurately with the progress made by their country.

As a result, women today might be better off than their mothers but trail their counterparts, even in many developing countries, when it comes to basics such as survival, education, participation in the labour force and so on. As the report puts it, "Despite stellar economic growth in recent years, maternal mortality (in India) is almost six times that in Sri Lanka."

Hardly the kind of statistic one would expect to read of a country that boasts of a woman President and has women at the helm of both the main ruling political party and the Opposition. But then, India has always been a land of contrasts and never more than when it comes to women. On the one hand, India has achieved, in 35 years, a decline in fertility comparable to what the US did in 100. On the other, gender inequalities persist in almost every sphere.

Women earn less than men for comparable work, ownership of assets is distinctly skewed against them and participation in the labour force has been stagnant at little over 30% for more than three decades (the 66th round of NSSO seems to suggest a decline). The picture is not much brighter when one turns to other indicators such as sex ratios, health and education. About 22% of the four million 'missing' women in the world are in India, damning evidence, if any were needed, of the limited success of laws in changing deeply-entrenched tradition.

The report advocates targeting the determinants of the gender gap rather than the outcomes, a suggestion well worth pursuing, given that past attempts focusing on outcomes have not delivered. Instead, reducing female mortality, removing gender gaps in education, improving access to economic opportunities, increasing women's voice and agency in society and limiting reproduction of gender inequality across generations, might!

The Economic Times, 15 October, 2011, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/editorial/focus-on-the-causes-of-the-gender-gap-rather-than-on-the-outcomes/articleshow/10361226.cms


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