Background :-
The honorable Supreme courrt, in the case of Shankar Kisanrao Khade vsStateofMaharashtra (‘Khade’) ,observed that while applying rarest of the rare principle ,the executive(President) has taken into consideration some factors not known to the courts for converting a death sentence to imprisonment for life.
Hence , called for Law commission to resolve the issue by examining whether death penalty is a deterrent punishment or is retributive justice or serves an incapacitative goal.
The 35th Law commission report emphasized the use of death penalty while 262th report recommends its abolition.The 262 th Law commission was published recently and nearly at the same time the parliament expanded the scope of death penalty (Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013) and if any reading of the public mood in general has taken in to account, save the intellectuals and erudite, it is largely in favor of doling out death to heinous offenders.Surprisingly this prevailing public mood is especially when India not at the cliff of a serious crisis such as wide spread communal violence or threat of terrorism per se.
Subsequent Developments : –
35threport Law Commission , 1962 :- It observed that, to the conditions in India,to the variety of the social upbringing of its inhabitants, to the disparity in the level of morality and education in the country, to the vastness of its area, to the diversity of its population, and to the paramount need for maintaining law and order in the country at the present juncture, India cannot risk the experiment of abolition of capital punishment .The commission upheld that the deterrent object of capital punishment was its most important object.
In the same vein it also held that the Human values and high moral grounds are compelling enough to abolish capital punishment , however maintenance of Law and order in such a vast county is of paramount importance and abolition of death penalty may lead to dilution of deterrence.
Political Developments :- Demands for death penalty have been made by various political parties in India ( CPI,CPM, DMK and many more) . More than once private members bill was presented in parliament to abolish death penalty.
International Developments:- In 1967 ,when 35thLaw commission report was presented ,only 12 countries has abolished death penalty.Today , 140 countries have abolished death penalty in law or in practice.The death penalty is most frequently used in Iran, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and USA.
History Of death Penalty In India :-
1) Following the execution of Bhagat Singh,Sukhdev and Rajguru by the British government, the Congress moved a resolution in its Karachi session,which included a demand for the abolition of the death penalty.
2)Indian Constitution assembly debates between 1947-1949 , at the time of drafting constitution, raised questions around Judge-centric nature of death penalty, arbitrariness in imposition, its discriminatory impact on people living in poverty, and the possibility of error. Dr B.R. Ambedkar was personally in favour of abolition of death penalty as can be noted from the transcripts of constitutional assembly debate.However , he suggested that the desirability of death penalty must be left to the parliament to discuss and legislate as per demands of time.
3)From Jagmohan to Bachan Singh :-
The constitutionality of death penalty first challenged in the case of Jagmohan Singh VS State of U.P (1973) ; and court held that death penalty was a permissible punishment and did not violate constitution.However held that the discretion of judges must be replaced with a procedure, but then again feeding every judicial data into a judicial computer and all such situations are astrological imponderables in an imperfect and undulating Society.
In case of Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab (1979) , the court adopted the principle of “rarest of rare crime” and opined that “A real and abiding concern for the dignity of human life postulates resistance to taking a life through law’s instrumentality. That ought not to be done save in the rarest of rare cases when the alternative option is unquestionably foreclosed”
4) Recently, the scope of death penalty is expanded . For example Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013 , introduced several new provisions into IPC , including section 376A , which allowed for the death penalty to be imposed in cases where rape led to death of the victim, or left her in a persistent vegetative state ; and 376E that allowed for death penalty for certain repeated offenders.These amendments were passed on the recommendation of Verma Committee report .
Justifications for Death penalty : –
The justification for death penalty is centered around following principles:-
A)Deterrence
B)Retribution
C)Incapacitation
D)Unique condition of India
E)Proportionality
F)Public Opinion
G)National Security and terrorism
A)Deterrence : –
Deterrence aims to prevent individuals from offending by using the fear or threat of punishment.The assumption behind deterrence theory is that all persons are rational individuals and everyone knows the penalty for the crime one commits and weighs the consequences before committing the crime.The prerequisites for deterrence is that : –
(a) That potential offenders know which offenses merit the death penalty
(b) That potential offenders conduct an analysis of the costs and benefits before or while committing the crime and weigh the death penalty as a serious and important cost
(c) That potential offenders view it a probable consequence that they will be subjected to the death penalty if they commit the crime
(d) That potential offenders are risk-averse and not risk-seeking
(e) That potential offenders give more weight to the costs than the benefits, and choose to not perform the act.
Given the above point , it can be attributed that deterrence rests upon two fundamental fallacies :-
a) Knowledge Fallcies:-
Knowledge fallacies refer to the idea that offenders do not know the penalties applicable to the crimes that they plan on committing. Hence, they do not feel deterred by a severe penalty. However,deterrence assumes that every individual knows the legal penalties applicable to him/her in case s/he commits a crime. There is ample evidence to show that both the general public and potential offenders have little or no knowledge of the penalties which they can be subjected to.
Aptly put :- About-to-be lawbreakers don’t look up penalties in the law books; they plan, if at all on how to avoid being caught
b) Rationality Fallacies : –
A major assumption of deterrence theory is that potential offenders are rational decision makers. However, a large number of crimes are committed in a fit of rage or anger, or when the offender is clinically depressed, or are motivated out of strong
emotions such as revenge or paranoia. In circumstances such as these, deterrence is unlikely to operate since the actor is not likely to give due weight,or even a cursory consideration to what penalties might be imposed on him/her subsequently; the focus being on the emotion driving his/her state of mind.
Theorists argue that the assumption in criminal law that the harsher the punishment, the
less likely it is to be committed is not true.
While deterrence by death penalty falters on an individual level , it does serve as a public deterrence , i.e. , it keeps the public aware of not to commit crimes that may lead to capital punishment.It acts as a fear that may stop one from pursuing momentary passion for crime.It acts as a manifestation of social values and society’s stand against certain heinous crimes.
B) Retribution : –
There are two accounts of retribution – one considers retribution as revenge. The other states that retribution does not demand committing an equivalent act on the offender, as is suggested by the “eye for an eye” philosophy (“mirror punishment”). It rather
advocates a measured and appropriate level of punishment for the offender’s conduct.
Revenge based retribution is denounced by SC , instead it upheld that retribution as punishment deserved by offender. Hence it is argued that capital punishment as a retributive justice is not a justified punishment. But then , separating retribution as revenge and retribution as deserved is blurred and thus tagging capital punishment as a retribution as revenge is far simpler generalization of a far more complex issue.
C)Incapacitation:-
The theory of incapacitation advocates dealing with offenders in such a way that they are not in a position to re-offend. It is generally used as a justification to impose longer sentences on repeat offenders, “dangerous” criminals and “career criminals.” Capital punishment is the most extreme form of incapacitation, since it implies taking the life of
the offender to ensure that he/she does not offend. A person is sentenced to death using the incapacitation rationale if it is determined that his/her existence causes an unreasonable threat to society.
On this ground life imprisonment may be argued as a better option than capital punishment as both incapacitates. But the difference is probably an economic one. If a person is not wanted in the society being a threat to it , the rationale to keep one imprisoned for life defeats the purpose of prisons as correction houses.Both the penalties are awarded when it is established that the individual is beyond reform , so keeping one alive till end of one’s life is a costlier burden on the state, especially for a state that is mired in poverty, inequality and many other social ills.
It may seem illogical and probably immoral to equate one’s life with economic aspects and weigh the options, but as the reality stands today ,owing to our economic development of state we don’t have enough health infrastructures and many die in the absence of basic healthcare facilities.In the same note of comparison it make no rationale to keep one imprisoned for life. So awarding life sentence instead of death penalty does not make justice more prudent by any standards.
D)Unique Condition of India :-
To compare , India with other societies would be a wrong proposition.Being a vast and diverse county with varying values of communities , it is essential that the rule of law must prevail , not only in literature but in spirit .Enforcement of rule of in such a diverse society is a humongous task.Judiciary essentially dispenses justice to individuals and deals with individuals on a case by case basis .On the contrary Government functions are completely different , it deals with the society as a whole and not on a individual basis.Thus while parliamentarians took recourse to expand the scope of death penalty , the law commission report headed by judiciary panelist , with inputs from various intellectuals recommended its abolition .And in this context , India , stands apart from any other country and so does it’s legal and judicial system and capital punishment.
E)Proportionality :-
Censuring the offender and communicating society’s disapproval of his/her actions is a primary goal of the theory of proportionality.The severity of the sentence is an important consideration for the theory of proportionality, since a disproportionate or severe punishment overpowers the element of censure. Deciding the proportionality has been a discretion of judges and rests on arbitrariness .Whether a death penalty is a proportional justice or not is largely dependent on the circumstances and culpability of the offender.
Recent case of Hanging of Yakub Memon is a case point.If an act terrorism or a conspiracy of terrorism , that resulted in death of hundreds of people , should the offender be awarded death penalty ? Oddly enough,the act of terrorism was committed in 1993 and execution occurred in 2015. The time difference between the two events has a telling on its own. Recently,i.e in 2015 , a larger section of media , both print and television has advocated for abolition of death penalty and commutation of life for accused ; however in 1993 (till the last decade of 20th century) the same section of media had not advocated or so to say debated the use of death penalty when it was awarded to the offender.It is well know that the accused was hanged as he was found guilty on many counts ; but what is missing is concept that terrorism that killed 100 (say) lives but it terrorized 100crore .Clearly the deceased were neither the target nor the victim of terrorism , it is the rest of the country , or so to say all of humanity was the target and they were the victim.
In this context , the judiciary can convict only on the facts that 100 lives were lost , but it can not ponder upon on the fear of 100 crore. And this is the reason why even though death penalty is no deterrence to terrorist ( given that they were on a suicide mission), yet it has to awarded in case of terrorist convictions and loss of life. Because , even if a terrorist is on a suicide mission , yet till he draws his last breath , he hope or plans to escape the consequence as survival is the basic instinct of human life and every offender never thinks he will be caught.
So proportionality of penalty has to be judged on case by case basis and abolishing a particular sentence by generalizing or categorizing the crimes as per convenience will be a gross disproportion.
F)Public Opinion:- Public opinions as usually reactionary and so is public.Hence judicious balance is required while weighing the option of penalty and due to this very reason we have witnessed ‘mob justice’ and ‘media trials’ on the matters that are sub-judicial.Public opinion does influence the courtrooms and parliament alike.So abolition of death penalty by generalizing that it does not have deterrence or disproportionate or harsh retribution of revenge is illogical.
G)National Security and Terrorism : – As stated above death penalty is no deterrence to the terrorists however it plays a great deal on public psyche and brings some form of solace to the victims and public at large.
Conclusion:-
Human values and Public opinion has great emphasis on shaping the society and the public should be convinced to move towards abolition of death penalty gradually and public consensus building is essential in this regard.Abrupt act is best avoided.Moreover given man’s natural inclination to transform his society to be more humane , it is essential that capital punishment must be abolished , but before this can be achieved , it is a prerequisite necessity that the public displays maturity.Complete abolition probably will take some moretime , but the recourse to capital punishment can be restricted if not by law then at least by practice .
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.