Decreasing Gender Disparity in India

Decreasing Gender Disparity in India

Mains Examination: General Studies Paper 1

(Women Empowerment and Gender Equality)

July 26, 2023

In News:

• According to the recently released World Economic Forum's Annual Gender Gap Report-2023, gender disparity has decreased in India.

Gender Gap Report, 2023:

• Recently the Annual Gender Gap Report-2023 of the World Economic Forum has been published. This time India has improved eight points in the Global Gender Index to rank 127 out of 146 countries. India's position has improved by 1.4 percent since last time.
• It may be noted that the World Economic Forum had ranked India at 135 out of 146 in its Global Gender Gap Index in 2022.
• Pakistan is ranked 142nd, Bangladesh 59th, China 107th, Nepal 116th, Sri Lanka 115th and Bhutan 103rd in this index. At the same time, with a gender gap of 91.2 percent, Iceland has retained its position as the country with the most gender parity for the fourteenth year in a row.
• This global gender gap index measures the level of inequality between men and women in terms of their social, political, educational, intellectual, cultural and economic empowerment, achievements and development.
• This index was developed by the World Economic Forum in 2006 to measure gender equality globally. The associated report examines four overall areas of inequality between men and women in 93 percent of the world's population in 130 economies around the world.
• It calculates gender equality by keeping economic participation and equality of opportunity at the first level, educational status at the second level, political empowerment at the third level and health and survival at the fourth level.
• Also, the gender gap index has been prepared by analyzing publicly available facts related to thirteen international organizations such as International Labor Organization, United Nations Development Program and World Health Organization out of fourteen variables used to make this index.

Assessment of the Report in the context of India:

• The assessment of this report shows that India has increased gender parity in enrollment at all levels of education and narrowed the gender gap by 64.3 per cent.
• According to this report, India has reached a level of 36.7 percent equality in terms of economic participation and opportunities. There has been a slight increase in the wages and income of women.
• India has achieved 25.3 percent equality for the first time in terms of political empowerment. Certainly this figure has been the highest since the first report in 2006. It is also noteworthy that since 2006, the number of women MPs here has been the highest at 15.1 per cent.

Efforts of Government of India for Gender Equality:

• Recent statistics published by the Government of India show that a budget of more than 57 crores has been allocated under the Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao scheme for the construction of women's toilets related to the dignity, safety and dignity of women, to stop female feticide in the country, to increase the number of girls in schools, to reduce the number of girls dropping out of schools, to implement the Right to Education Act.
• Allocation of Rs 2.23 lakh crore in the 'Gender Budget' with the aim of reducing the gender gap, opening of accounts of more than three crore girls in Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, 33 percent reservation for women in police forces under defense service sector, permanent commission to 28 percent women officers, economic empowerment of women under Pradhan Mantri Swanidhi Yojana, etc. Dozens of such schemes have the effect that women of India have opportunities to be self-sufficient in the field of education, service and self-employment. have been received.

Comparative Analysis of Indian Gender Disparity:

• Comparatively, this report shows Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan in a better position than India in terms of gender equality. This clearly shows the biased approach in the report. India has a strong democracy, it has become the fifth strongest economy in the world. India has no match today in medicine, education, defence, space science, artificial intelligence etc.
• Politically and commercially, women are creating success stories today. This is definitely the result of the changing thinking of the parents and their generosity. Needless to say that this generosity and change in thinking towards women in India is not spontaneous. Apart from other efforts for women empowerment in the country, the central government's implementation of schemes related to service, good governance, poor welfare and women empowerment on priority basis at the ground level during the last nine years has also yielded significant results.
• In the report released in the year 2022, the government raised questions on the evaluation process of the World Economic Forum. It had said that the index failed to look at the political empowerment and financial inclusion of women in India at the grassroots level. Just as India has challenged the Global Hunger Index, it is time to challenge the Global Gender Index as well. The Government of India said that the evaluation of this global report has been done on the basis of western standards by negating the Indian standards. Certainly, this gender gap report has been carefully prepared this time and India has been shown in a slightly better position.
• Most of the reports that were published globally in the past days, either tried to undermine India or tarnish India's image. In this context, it is felt that the global competition of the transition period of India from a developing country to a developed nation is more visible at the foreign level. Today, half of the population of India is women.
• The talk of underestimating women in India is now slowly receding into the background. The tendency to underestimate women in India has been more due to India's slavery period. In the Islamic and British rule after the Vedic period, the rulers have done a pre-planned work of developing different identities of men and women here. On this basis, the discrimination between men and women has increased more here.
• Gender equality in India is important for sustainable development as well as for realizing human rights. The primary objective of gender equality in India is to create a society in which women and men enjoy equal opportunities and fair discharge of responsibilities at all stages of life. It is absolutely true that the nation which has protected gender equality in itself has also realized the dream of a developed nation.
• India is now on the way to decide the journey of a developed nation. In such a situation, the report of Mackenzie Global Institute states that by intensifying the efforts of gender equality in India, there is a possibility of an increase of twelve billion dollars in global development. Also, by increasing the participation of women in the labor force by ten percent, India's GDP can increase rapidly by 2025.
• There is strong evidence of the fact that in order to build a prosperous society and nation, it is indispensable to develop women on the basis of equality. This latest Global Gender Gap Index report also indicates the same, while appreciating India's continuous efforts in this direction, it inspires to continue them in the future as well.

Conclusions:

• Gender inequality exists in almost every society in the world. From ancient times to the present day, there is a long history of denying women decision making, acceptance of them as economic unit and denying them access to social resources.
• Gender equality is the process of being fair to women and men. To ensure this, efforts have been going on for a long time at the local, national and global levels.
• Gender equality requires that women and men have equal access to social power, decision-making, opportunities, resources and rewards.

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Mains Exam Question

At present, gender disparity has decreased in India. Make a comparative analysis of it.