What is Make in India? Is it a scheme, a slogan or a campaign?
It is none of that. It is an initiative. What India has done in last 60 years is confining manufacturing largely to the public sector. I would not say deliberately but as a result of a socialist school of thought that was nurtured by the government of India. Private entrepreneurship was never given encouragement. So, you had a public sector as a major investor and manufacturer, while the big private sector companies, whoever have been there since the British days, they continued. The small enterprise that prevailed all over India was never given its due share.
Second Five-Year Plan, of course, spoke of manufacturing, but that looked at large-scale investment in manufacturing… looking at encouraging entrepreneurship, giving them space to grow in manufacturing did not happen in a concerted way. What was needed as a result is to remove the approach that had almost stifled individual entrepreneurship, remove the role of the government as a regulator, remove the need for constantly asking for certification, inspection, licences. We are saying none of that should happen. You self-certify and if there is minimum requirement, then you do it online.
Do we have an estimate as to how many new companies have actually set up shop in India after Make In India was launched and how many additional jobs have been created?
No, not yet. I don’t think we have even started looking at it from that angle.
What is the idea behind the Make In India celebration?
The momentum was never lost since it was launched. That’s why ease of doing business was possible at the initial stages with the state governments participating with us. Now, more such issues have been identified and those issues have already been shared with the state governments. They are working on it to remove hurdles to make it possible.
Now that more than a year has been completed, we wanted to make sure that everything which is under Make in India is being showcased. Remember, we had identified 25 sectors for focus and have opened up newer areas (for foreign investment) such as railways and some parts of defence, all these will find a place in the Make in India Week where 18 states and more than 65 countries are participating. So, it will be a major event and the scale of it and the way in which we are presenting it will make India proud and show what India is capable of.
With large-scale automation happening in manufacturing, some experts say using manufacturing to create large-scale jobs may be an outdated concept. Do you agree?
Large-scale automation may happen in very large industries which need robotics for precision. But in India, it has not reached that level, which should worry us.
If anything, the government’s focus is on small and medium enterprises and all enterprises that create more jobs than what is scalable for their size and the capital investment they bring in. So, that does not worry me at all. Let automation happen, but it is not happening at the cost of workers.
Experts say India cannot boost its manufacturing without being part of a global value chain. What are the efforts being made towards that direction?
I agree on that aspect and we are working to make sure that linkages as a part of global value chain, which have to be made by Indian manufacturer, is being made. We have opened up a lot of sectors in such a way that the global value chain idea is not lost. Those who are in manufacturing have to see how their focus will have to be for linking with the global value chain. Government can only be a facilitator. We will certainly do that.
Many claim that by focusing excessively on manufacturing, the government may be neglecting the services sector where India has a natural advantage. Do you agree?
In fact, I have just been asked the opposite—that we are over-emphasizing on services and ignoring manufacturing. We recognize that services contribute more than 50% to the Indian economy. We also recognize the fact that the national manufacturing policy wanted to increase the contribution of manufacturing from where it is today to 25% by 2022. So, there has to be focus on product manufacturing both for India and for exports, otherwise we will not be able to meet the target set by the manufacturing policy.
One example often cited is your policy towards the retail sector where many claim the current foreign direct investment (FDI) policy hinders growth of the sector by limiting its potential for job creation. Is there a rethink on the FDI policy in retail?
Retail sector already provides a lot of jobs and that is one of the reasons why in order to understand how that will be affected if you open the windows without even preparing that sector, we took a decision that multi-brand retail should be kept aside from FDI (reforms).
Is there any thought of changing that policy?
At the moment, there is not any. If there is any, I will let you know.
In e-commerce also, the same issue is raised that because the FDI policy is not clear, it fails to create large-scale jobs.
I am not sure it is the case. E-commerce is already happening in the country… we will come out with something on it in terms of defining e-commerce because every state has taken its own approach. But to say that will have an impact on job creation, I don’t believe that is true.
So, we are working on definitional issues, not on FDI issues in e-commerce, because there were some reports suggesting government will allow 100% FDI in marketplace e-commerce?
That’s right. We are talking about definitional issues. I don’t respond to reports.
You recently said India may require to undertake structural reforms like it did in the early 1990s to respond to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). What are these reforms we would need?
The question about the value chains you raised is a very important thing and a lot of activity needs to happen on that front. Second, you have to beat the rules of origin argument. We will now need to see whether we can establish manufacturing facilities in areas where we have a global recognition in countries which are part of the TPP. So, sectors who otherwise think they may lose out their market because of TPP can now hopefully set up units in such countries and manufacture so that they can gain from the rules of origin restrictions. Third, all said and done, we have to work on standards. Once India’s own standards of goods, some of which have global recognition, are able to match up with markets that are now having their pluriliteral understandings, you can reach out to these markets which are otherwise not covered (by our trade deals). So, standards are very demanding, but necessary work.
You have said at the Partnership Summit in Visakhapatnam that India will renegotiate some of the free trade agreements (FTAs) to address the concerns of the industry. How exactly will you do this, given the complications involved?
Well, I am not going to start renegotiating them now; there is always a time for it. Some of them are negotiated for a certain period and when they come for a negotiation or renewal, that is the time when we have to look at it again. Because the experience of a lot of manufacturers and exporters are reaching us. We will have to see how best they have understood the FTAs or is it that many of our exporters fully not utilizing the provisions which are available under the FTAs. So, it’s a constant exercise of looking at how best we can help the situation. I certainly did say that if at all when an FTA comes for review, we will certainly look at it.
After the Nairobi ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO), what will be India’s approach at the WTO?
Post-Nairobi, we will have to see those commitments, reiterations which have been made there are carried forward. We ensured that we just didn’t get a reiteration but also a commitment for a work programme for each of them, whether it is for food security or it is for special safeguard mechanism (SSM). So, our first effort will be to get a work plan out. We will also make sure that many of the other unfinished agenda of the Doha round also start getting traction before the next ministerial happens in two years.
But for us, is the Doha round alive or dead, because there was no consensus on it at Nairobi
There is no consensus means status quo continues.
Editorial
Make in India:-
- A Major National Initiative.
- Designed To Facilitate Investment.
- Foster Innovation.
- Enhance Skill Development.
- Protect Intellectual Property.
- And Build Best-In-Class Manufacturing Infrastructure.
Make in India was launched by Prime Minister against the backdrop of this crisis, and quickly became a rallying cry for India’s innumerable stakeholders and partners. It was a powerful, galvanising call to action to India’s citizens and business leaders, and an invitation to potential partners and investors around the world. But, Make in India is much more than an inspiring slogan. It represents a comprehensive and unprecedented overhaul of out-dated processes and policies. Most importantly, it represents a complete change of the Government’s mindset – a shift from issuing authority to business partner, in keeping with Prime Minister’s tenet of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’.
The government launched “Make In India” initiative which aims at promoting India as an investment destination and to establish India as a global hub for manufacturing, design and innovation. The initiative aims to provide favorable environment to the business community so that they can devote their resources, efforts and energy in productive work. A number of steps have been taken by the government to improve the ease of doing business in the country. Rules and procedures have been simplified and a number of products have been taken off licensing requirements.
Government has opened up a number of sectors for FDI. The Policy in defence sector has been liberalized and FDI cap has been raised from 26% to 49%.
100% FDI has been allowed in defence sector for modern & state of the art technology on case to case basis. 100% FDI under automatic route has been permitted in construction, operation and maintenance in Rail Infrastructure projects.
Further, liberalization norms for Insurance and Medical Devices has been done. ‘Make in India’ program represents an attitudinal shift in how India relates to investors; not as a permit-issuing authority, but as a true business partner. An Investor Facilitation Cell has been created in ‘Invest India’. A dedicated team of the Investor Facilitation Cell is there to guide and assist first-time investors.
It is time for India to focus on building competitive advantage on global scale in sectors where we have a large domestic market and certain inherent capabilities. Strategy is all about making choices. The top five priority industries are- Defence, electronics hardware, construction, health care and agro-industries.
However, for India to become a manufacturing nation, it has to quickly move beyond rhetoric to create a clear strategy and favourable policy environment for manufacturing to take off. The government has chosen to quietly dismantle the sclerotic National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) but it needs to foster a more vibrant think tank in its place.
A close dialogue and partnership between government and the private sector, both domestic and foreign, is critical. Indian companies along with Chinese, Japanese, German, American and Swedish companies are all vital partners and we must create an environment that is open and welcoming.
In many of the Indian industries, people insist for manual skill because they apprehend that adoption of advanced technology will result in redundancy of human resource, which is abundantly available in India. As such they resist the change and introduction of new technology.
However, technology driven processes with minimum human intervention will guarantee manufacturing excellence. From technological point of view India is lagging behind the western world, as far as manufacturing is concerned.
Experts say, India is still about a decade behind advanced countries, when it comes to usage of technology and manufacturing excellence. But this situation can be turned to our advantage. The country can learn from the mistakes of the western world and try to adopt the best ever technology in the years to come.
Make in India necessarily involves the drive to boost the manufacturing sector. However, the investors are wary of prevalent labor laws and bureaucratic hassles in India and as such, unless conducive atmosphere is created on these fronts the investments will not come as expected and Make in India drive will not accomplish desired results.
In order to make this initiative a great success, we need to be at par with the advanced world as far as usage of modern technology is concerned and we need to have more clarity, maturity and intensity on quality aspects of our products.
Creating healthy business environment will be possible only when the administrative machinery is efficient. India has been very stringent when it comes to procedural and regulatory clearances. A business-friendly environment will only be created if India can signal easier approval of projects and set up hasstle-free clearance mechanism. India should also be ready to tackle elements that adversely affect competitiveness of manufacturing. To make the country a manufacturing hub the unfavorable factors must be removed. India should also be ready to give tax concessions to companies who come and set up unit in the country. India’s small and medium-sized industries can play a big role in making the country take the next big leap in manufacturing. India should be more focused towards novelty and innovation for these sectors. The government has to chart out plans to give special sops and privileges to these sectors.
India must also encourage high-tech imports, research and development (R&D) to upgrade ‘Make in India’ give edge-to-edge competition to the Chinese counterpart’s campaign. To do so, India has to be better prepared and motivated to do world class R&D. The government must ensure that it provides platform for such research and development.
India is ranked 132nd out of 185 economies in Doing Business 2013 by the World Bank. India’s restrictions on foreign equity ownership are greater than the average of the countries covered by the Investing Across Sectors indicators in the South Asia region and of the BRIC (Brazil, Russian Federation, India, and China) countries.
India imposes restrictions on foreign equity ownership in many sectors, and in particular in the service industries. Sectors such as railway freight transportation and forestry are dominated by public monopolies and are closed to foreign equity participation. With the exception of certain activities specified by law, foreign ownership in the agriculture sector is also not allowed. These restrictions need to be eased for making India better place for doing business.
Infrastructure tops the list of most surveys on doing business in India. In particular, chronic deficiencies in transportation and power impose prohibitive costs and lower business competitiveness.
Multiple enterprise surveys have identified electricity as the biggest constraint. Further, India lags behind on every measure of transport connectivity. Though there have been considerable recent successes spurred by private participation, much needs to be done. However, introduction of UDAY scheme is a good step in this regard.
Sound macroeconomic policies are necessary to create a low-inflation, low-interest rate and high-growth environment that is essential for the country’s global manufacturing competitiveness. Given the huge size and vast diversity of the country, a diagnostic for each state may be a more prudent strategy.
In any case, instead of big-bang reforms, sustained efforts in multiple directions, which cumulatively generate large effects, are required to relax these constraints so that we can realise the goal of making in India.
In Sum Challenges to Make in India can be described in the following heads:-
- Skill-employment gap
- Shrinking global economy and negative investor sentiments
- Even after the big push , the program is yet to show turn around results due to the aforementioned factor
- Land acquisition problems and environmental impact assessment issues
- Automation vis-a-vis employment
- Challenges before small and medium scale industry is unique as they don;t have the competitive advantage to compete in global scale
- Few industries such as solar manufacturing are at their nascent stage requiring protection and challenges of geopolitics emanating from protectionism.
- Policy and statutory challenges
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.