News Snippet
News 1: India’s jobless rate rose to 3-month high of 8% in November
News 2: Digi Yatra initiative
News 3: Centre to cut funds if land is not allotted for housing scheme
News 4: How will global layoffs impact India?
News 5: How the e-rupee will work?
News 6: Nepal elections – Possible outcomes, and implications for India
Other important news:
- India’s entire 2/3-wheeler fleet needs $285 bn to turn electric
- Baguette makes it to UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list
News 1: India’s jobless rate rose to 3-month high of 8% in November
Background
India’s unemployment rate rose to 8% in November, the highest in three months, from 7.77% in the previous month, data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) showed on Thursday.
The urban unemployment rate rose to 8.96% in November from 7.21% in the previous month, according to the data.
The rural unemployment rate slipped to 7.55% from 8.04%, it showed.
Unemployment rate
The unemployment rate is essentially the percentage of working-age people (15 years and above) who are demanding work but not able to get a job.
The underlying size of the labour force — that is, the percentage of working-age people demanding work — itself varies over time and is measured by the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR).
Unemployment rate = [Total unemployed / Total Labour Force]
In other words, unemployment rates are expressed as a percentage of the labour force, not the total population.
News 2: Digi Yatra initiative
Background
Passengers traveling from Delhi, Varanasi and Bengaluru will be able to use their face as boarding pass from December 1 to enter these airports, to access the security check area and pass the boarding gate.
Travellers will have to mandatorily provide their Aadhaar details to avail themselves of this service.
Face recognition technology for boarding pass
The technology, however, is not available at airline check-in counters at the moment and is expected to be introduced at a later stage, said airport sources.
Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia launched the technological initiative called “Digi Yatra” at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on Thursday.
The facility is also expected to be operational at Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune and Vijayawada by March 2023, and then gradually across various airports in the country.
The service is voluntary in nature, and is currently available only for domestic flights.
What is DigiYatra and how will it work?
DigiYatra envisages that travellers pass through various checkpoints at the airport through paperless and contactless processing, using facial features to establish their identity, which would be linked to the boarding pass.
With this technology, the entry of passengers would be automatically processed based on the facial recognition system at all checkpoints – including entry into the airport, security check areas, aircraft boarding, etc.
DigiYatra process
Under the DigiYatra process, a passenger will first be required to download the Digi Yatra app on his or her phone, register with an OTP received on the Aadhaar-linked mobile number, upload Aadhaar details and a photo followed by uploading the boarding pass for the upcoming travel.
This will now allow the passenger to enter the airport building after scanning the QR code on the digital boarding pass followed by a facial scan. Next, the passenger can gain access to the security area too with a mere face scan.
The passenger will have to continue to use the traditional method for check-in and baggage drop, which involves a digital or a paper boarding pass along with other identity documents.
Speaking about privacy concerns, Mr. Scindia said that passenger’s identity details and personally identifiable information (PII) will be stored in a secure wallet in the passenger’s phone.
News 3: Centre to cut funds if land is not allotted for housing scheme
Background
The States unable to provide land to the landless beneficiaries of the Union government’s flagship housing scheme by December 15 will find their targets for this financial year redistributed to other States, the Centre warned recently.
This means that the Centre will withdraw its share of funds allocated to errant States under the Centrally sponsored Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awas Yojana (PMAY-G).
Land allocation and housing scheme
More than a fifth of such landless beneficiaries are in Tamil Nadu.
As per the statistics available with the Union Ministry of Rural Development, 2.06 crore houses had been constructed till November 2022.
With the scheme entering its final phase, the construction of houses for at least 2.5 lakh landless beneficiaries across the country is one of the last impediments. However, 43% of landless beneficiaries are yet to be provided with land.
Tamil Nadu, with 56,709 landless beneficiaries still on the wait list, followed by Maharashtra (48,272), Assam (23,064), Odisha (19,869) and Bihar (16,943).
Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awas Yojana (PMAY-G)
Launched: April 2016
Type: Centrally Sponsored Scheme
A goal of building 2.95 crore houses for the rural poor by March 2022, with the target figure derived from the Socio-Economic Caste Census, 2011.
Timeline: The scheme was launched in April 2016 Due to the COVID pandemic, the deadline was extended by two years till March 2024.
Need for housing
Housing is one of the basic requirements for human survival. For a normal citizen owning a house provides significant economic and social security and status in society.
For a shelter less person, a house brings about a profound social change in his existence, endowing him with an identity, thus integrating him with his immediate social milieu.
Objective
To provide pucca house to all who are houseless and living in dilapidated houses in rural areas. The overall target is to construct 2.95 crore pucca houses with basic amenities by March, 2024.
Funding
For plain areas, Central: State = 60:40
For Northeastern areas, Central: State = 90:10
News 4: How will global layoffs impact India?
Background
Over the past two months, a slew of U.S. multinational companies including tech giants Amazon, Meta, Intel, Twitter and financial behemoths like Citi and Morgan Stanley, announced massive layoffs.
According to a global placement and coaching firm, the layoffs crossed 60,000 in September and October. These developments are bound to have an impact, on India’s export prospects, especially in the information technology (IT) sector.
Why are layoffs becoming common?
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai had warned of a coming winter in the tech sector earlier this year. A potential economic recession is a big red flag.
With inflation soaring in most parts of the world, central banks have been scrambling since March this year to rein it in by increasing rates so as to make it more costly to borrow and consume. This will eventually affect economic growth and jobs.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cited forecasts for global GDP growth in both 2022 and 2023 as gloomy, given the pandemic and ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Setting aside the 2008 crisis numbers, estimates for this calendar and the next by the IMF are the weakest since 2001.
What is the outlook for the Indian IT industry?
The Indian IT services firms are among the largest employers in the organised sector and any global economic trend is bound to have an impact on their growth projections. Managements look at headcount numbers critically when they want to cut costs and protect profit margins as they are accountable to investors.
All top companies except Wipro saw a rise in revenue and net profit. Wipro’s net profit slid 9% from a year earlier for the quarter ended September.
The attrition rates, or the number of employees per 100 quitting on their own, of the top two firms, TCS and Infosys, show that these rates are still high, which means that there is enough business for the sector for competitors to draw away employees with promise of higher salaries.
What about start-ups?
News of layoffs in the Indian start-up front is predominantly in EDtech, or the educational technology front. A lesser share of internet users visiting educational websites since the decline of the pandemic is cited as one reason.
News 5: How the e-rupee will work?
Background
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 01st December, 2022 launched the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) — digital rupee or e-rupee (e₹) — for the common man.
What is CBDC or the digital rupee?
CBDC is a legal tender issued by the RBI in digital form. It is the same as the fiat currency, and is exchangeable one-to-one with the fiat currency.
Only its form is different — it is not paper (or polymer) like physical cash. It is a fungible legal tender, for which holders need not have a bank account.
CBDC will appear as ‘liability’ (currency in circulation) on the RBI’s balance sheet.
The e-rupee will be in the form of a digital token representing a claim on the central bank, and will effectively function as the digital equivalent of a banknote that can be transferred electronically from one holder to another.
A token CBDC is a “bearer-instrument” like a banknote, meaning whoever ‘holds’ the tokens at a given point in time will be presumed to own them.
How is RBI introducing the CBDC?
The pilot launched will initially cover four cities — Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar — and will be later extended to Ahmedabad, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Lucknow, Patna, and Shimla.
The pilot will work in a closed user group (CUG) comprising participating customers and merchants, the RBI has said. Select customers from the selected cities will get CBDC wallets with notes printed digitally with the RBI Governor’s signature.
Eight banks will participate in the pilot — the State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC First Bank in the first phase in the first four cities, and subsequently, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank.
The scope of the pilot may be expanded gradually to cover more banks, users, and locations.
How can an individual use the e-rupee?
E-rupees will be issued in the same denominations as paper currency and coins, and will be distributed through the intermediaries, that is banks. Transactions will be through a digital wallet offered by the participating banks, and stored on mobile phones and devices.
Transactions can be both person to person (P2P) and person to merchant (P2M). For P2M transactions (such as shopping), there will be QR codes at the merchant location.
A user will be able to withdraw digital tokens from banks in the same way she can currently withdraw physical cash. She will be able to keep her digital tokens in the wallet, and spend them online or in person, or transfer them via an app.
How is this different from other wallets?
Not very different in terms of how it will be used. However, UPI-based apps like Google Pay and Paytm have a daily and per-transaction spending limit.
The RBI has not fixed any limit on holding digital rupees in wallets. Digital rupee transactions above Rs 2 lakh are likely to be reported for tax matters.
What are the types of e-rupee?
Based on usage and the functions performed by the digital rupee, and considering different levels of accessibility, the RBI has demarcated the digital rupee into retail and wholesale categories.
Retail e-rupee (launched on 1st December, 2022) is an electronic version of cash primarily meant for retail transactions, which can potentially be used by almost everyone, and can provide access to safe money for payment and settlements.
Wholesale CBDC is designed for restricted access to select financial institutions. It has the potential to transform the settlement systems for financial transactions undertaken by banks in the government securities (G-Sec) segment and inter-bank market, and make the capital market more efficient and secure in terms of operational costs, use of collateral, and liquidity management.
What was the need to introduce the e-rupee?
Leveraging blockchain technology for the e-rupee is a stepping stone for India becoming a $1 trillion digital economy.
India is witnessing massive growth in digital transactions — the volume and value of UPI transactions increased by 118 per cent and more that 98 per cent respectively in Q2 2022 compared to Q2 2021, said Srinivas Nidugondi, Chief Growth & Transformation Officer at the mobility solutions provider Comviva.
How is CBDC different from cryptocurrency?
Being backed by the RBI, e-rupee is not comparable to private virtual currencies like Bitcoin that have mushroomed over the last decade.
Private virtual currencies sit at substantial odds with the historical concept of money. They are not commodities or claims on commodities as they have no intrinsic value; claims that they are akin to gold seem opportunistic.
Usually, certainly for the most popular ones now, they do not represent any person’s debt or liabilities. There is no issuer. They are not money — certainly not currency — as the word has come to be understood historically.
Cryptos are not backed by the central bank; in fact, the RBI wants the government to ban cryptocurrencies in India.
The inherent design of cryptocurrencies is more geared to bypass the established and regulated intermediation and control arrangements that play the crucial role of ensuring integrity and stability of the monetary and financial ecosystem, says the RBI’s concept note on digital rupee.
What are the benefits of e-rupee?
- Reduced dependency on cash
- Higher seigniorage due to lower transaction costs
- Reduced settlement risk
- Large cash usage can be replaced by CBDCs
- The cost of printing, transporting, storing and distributing currency can be reduced
- Payments are final, and thus reduce settlement risk in the financial system
- The need for interbank settlement disappears
- Enables a more real-time and cost-effective globalization of payment systems
- Reduces operational costs associated with physical cash management
- Enhance settlement efficiency
- Spur innovation in cross-border payments
Will CBDC work in offline mode?
There is no indication yet from the RBI that the e-rupee will function in the offline mode. While offline functionality will allow CBDC transactions in regions with poor or no Internet connectivity and create digital footprints of the unbanked population in the financial system.
The RBI feels that a risk of ‘double-spending’ exists in offline mode — because it will be technically possible to use a CBDC unit more than once without updating the common ledger of CBDC.
However, the RBI has said this can be mitigated to a large extent by technical solutions and appropriate business rules including a monetary limit on offline transactions.
Is it vulnerable to cyber-attacks?
The RBI concept paper says CBDC ecosystems may be at similar risk for cyber-attacks as existing payment systems. Cybersecurity considerations will need to be taken care of, both for the item and the environment.
News 6: Nepal elections – Possible outcomes, and implications for India
Background
Votes are still being tallied in the Nepal parliamentary elections that were held on November 20, only the second since the country adopted its republican constitution in 2015.
From the count so far, the six-party pre-poll alliance led by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) of Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ is in the lead.
What Delhi hopes
From India’s perspective, the continuance of a Deuba-led government is the best scenario. The Nepali Congress has old ties to India, and under his prime ministership, India-Nepal ties recovered to a great extent from the low to which they had sunk under Prime Minister K P Oli’s watch.
After succeeding Oli in a game of thrones in 2021, Deuba made his first visit to India in April this year. The three day tour included Varansi, and the Kasi Vishwanath temple and helped to kick start a relationship that had been in the doldrums since the map controversy over Lipulekh in 2020, with Oli seen to be raking it up for political gain back at home.
The Indian establishment views the former prime minister as “pro-China”. Even before Oli began his first term in October 2015 (it lasted until August 2016), India and Nepal had a bitter falling out over Nepal’s new constitution adopted just a month earlier.
Delhi was upset that the final draft of the Constitution did not include the marginalisation concerns of the Madhesi and the Tharu — two ethnic groups that live in the southern Terai region along the border with India and constitute 40 per cent of Nepal’s population. Madhesis also have strong cross-border ethnic ties.
A blockade of Nepal along the Indian border with tacit support from Delhi crippled supplies to the landlocked country for several months, triggering massive shortages.
Oli turned to China for supplies, signing a trade and transit treaty during a visit to Beijing.
When his government was ousted within a year, Oli blamed India. He became prime minister again in 2018 following the 2017 elections after the unification of the Nepal Communist Party (United Marxist Leninist) with Prachanda’s CPN (Maoist Centre).
China is believed to have played a key role in the unification. In this second term, India-Nepal relations virtually broke down over the map controversy.
Following Deuba’s visit in April this year, Prime Minister Modi visited Lumbini, his fifth visit to Nepal and the first ever by an Indian head of government to the Buddhist holy site, Lord Buddha’s birth place.
Amid discussions on energy co-operation, talk about territory and the call for revising the Indio-Nepal Friendship Treaty quietened.
Dark horses
This election was supposed to bring big change in Nepal. That may not happen, as the old parties have still swung enough seats to put them in position for government formation. But several big guns, including ministers and incumbents have been sent packing by voters.
In the Madhes region, a new challenger has risen in the form of Janamat Party, led by C K Raut, who once campaigned for the region’s secession. The Madesh vote, earlier held by two parties, is now splintered.
Whatever the shape or colour of the new dispensation, the view from Delhi is that it is bound to be shaky and may not last its term due to the pulls and pressures from within.
India-Nepal ties post election
For India, the main challenge in Nepal is China’s looming presence. The nature of the India-China contestation in Nepal is different from elsewhere in South Asia.
Nepal and India have an open 1800 km -long border. Citizens of both countries can traverse this border freely, to live and work.
But sandwiched between the regional giant and an Asian superpower, Nepal is in the crosshairs of intense geopolitical rivalry. This is not necessarily bad as it gives Nepal enormous leverage with both sides, which it could use to secure the best “deal” for itself.
But it also means constant tensions with both neighbours. An alarm is bound to go up in Delhi when China is awarded projects such as the Terai-Madhes Expressway (cancelled by the Nepal Supreme Court earlier this week after Indian bidder Afcons mounted a legal challenge to it), or when China and Nepal discuss railway projects extending to Lumbini, close to the Indian border.
The United States is a recent entrant to the contest, with its interests becoming apparent in the manner in which Deuba’s government managed to find parliamentary support to ratify a long pending but contentious $ 500 million Millennium Challenge Corporation fund hours before it was due to expire.
The agreement will finance road building, building, power transmission lines, and facilitate cross-border electricity trade between Nepal and India.
The ratification has triggered concern that the “Quad has arrived in Nepal” . US diplomacy in Nepal is now more high profile than it used to be.
For Delhi, this is good news right now, as the US presence is seen as strengthening its hands, but for the long term, if geopolitical alliances shift, and India’s own partnerships evolve, there might be a different view.
Rae pointed out that energy trade has been the “big success story” in India-Nepal relations. During Deuba’s visit, the two sides signed a “vision document” on energy co-operation, agreeing to hydropower generation its “cornerstone”.
The elements of this co-operation include joint development of power generation projects in Nepal, development of cross-border transmission infra, bi-directional power trade with appropriate market access on both sides, co-ordination with each other’s national grids, and sharing operational information and technology.
They agreed to expand this co-operation to other countries in the Bhutan Bangladesh India Nepal sub-regional grouping
Other important news
India’s entire 2/3-wheeler fleet needs $285 bn to turn electric
The complete electrification of India’s entire fleet of two and three-wheelers will require financing to the tune of $285 billion (nearly ₹23 lakh crore), according to the World Economic Forum’s White Paper published in collaboration with NITI Aayog.
The WEF paper said the last-mile and urban delivery fleets were leading the adoption of electric two-and three-wheelers in India and were likely the first segments to transition completely to electric.
Baguette makes it to UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list
Baguette — the staple French bread — was inscribed into the UN’s list of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) on November 30.
The baguette is a long and thin loaf made of flour, water, salt and yeast, and is consumed as a staple in France.
What is intangible cultural heritage according to UNESCO?
UNESCO defines “intangible” as “expressions that have been passed from one generation to another, have evolved in response to their environments and contribute to giving us a sense of identity and continuity…”
According to an official document by UNESCO, ‘intangible cultural heritage’ includes “oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.”
It ascribes importance to “the wealth of knowledge and skills that is transmitted through it from one generation to the next,” which necessitates their preservation.
The document states that the safeguarding of an ICH means ensuring that it “remains an active part of life for today’s generations that they can hand on to tomorrow.”
The adoption of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH by the General Conference of UNESCO in 2003 was a crucial step towards preserving intangible heritage from across the globe.
UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity was established in the year 2008.
What are India’s intangible cultural symbols on the UNESCO list?
The elements which have been on the representative list of intangible cultural heritage from India in the past decade include –
- Kolkata’s Durga Puja (2021)
- Kumbh Mela (2017)
- Navroz (2016), Yoga (2016)
- Traditional brass and copper craft of utensil-making among coppersmiths of Punjab (2014)
- Sankirtana, a ritual musical performance of Manipur (2013)
- The Buddhist chanting of Ladakh (2012)
- Chhau dance, Kalbelia folk songs and dance of Rajasthan, and Mudiyettu, a dance drama from Kerala (2010)
- Ramman, a religious festival and theatre performance of Garhwal in the Himalayas (2009)
- Kutiyattam or Sanskrit theatre, and Vedic chanting (2008).
Recent Posts
Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.
On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.