Critical minerals are considered to be the ‘new oil’, with the potential to drive the high-technology industrial revolution. However, the concentration of critical mineral supply chains along the downstream, middle, and upstream segments in specific states, such as China, has created security challenges for other countries; this is true for the Quad members.
Consequently, countries are developing policies and strategies to create a resilient supply chain. The European Union (EU) and countries such as Canada, India, Australia, and South Korea have acknowledged the importance of critical minerals and have released either a strategy or a list of critical minerals.
Currently, the global critical mineral supply chain is concentrated among a few key players along the upstream segment, including China, Australia, and the United States (US), and regions like Latin America and Central Asia.
China controls the midstream and downstream segments.
Much of the competition is concentrated in the Indo-Pacific region. In this context, the Quad members’ push to secure the critical mineral supply chain is driven by economic growth targets and the pursuit of development and regional influence.
China’s Dominance and Weaponization of Critical Minerals:
China currently dominates the supply chain for critical minerals, including rare-earth elements (REEs) such as neodymium and dysprosium, capturing 60 percent of global REE production and almost 90 percent of worldwide processing and refining capacity
China’s domination of the critical minerals supply chain presents risks for adversaries.
In 2010, Beijing began weaponising the critical minerals supply chain by halting the export of REEs to Japan.
In 2023, Beijing began using trade weaponisation as a foreign policy tool, restricting the global export of critical minerals such as germanium and gallium.
Recognising the risk associated with the high dependence on China for strategic minerals, a number of countries began de-risking from China after the pandemic. However, the extent of de-risking differed across countries, depending on their requirements and relations with Beijing.
As the great-power rivalry intensifies, states are becoming more anxious about their dependence on China, particularly countries from groups like the Quad and AUKUS—i.e., India, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom (UK), and the US—which have adversarial relations with Beijing.
The dependence on China is expected to increase if proper steps are not taken at the appropriate speed and scale. Existing initiatives are uneconomical and unsustainable.
Current projections indicate that the demand for lithium and REEs will experience a sharp increase between 2030 and 2050.This demand is expected to be fulfilled by China for the next decade.
The current supply of lithium is estimated to be able to meet only 50 percent of the demand by 2035. Similarly, the demand of REEs is estimated to increase by three to seven times by 2040 per current levels, with China continuing to dominate 55 percent in mining and 78 percent in refining, respectively.
This projection highlights severe challenges for Quad members in the long term, especially as geopolitical competition with China escalates in all domains.
The Quad and Critical Minerals:
The Quad members have their respective strengths in critical minerals:
Australia is a resource-rich state with critical minerals reserves; the US has the technological capability for mining; Japan has the capital and extensive experience in extracting and processing; and India has rich reserves of unexploited minerals and a growing consumer market. These capabilities, if combined, can produce positive results for the countries themselves as well as for the Indo-Pacific region.
Australia: A Resource Reserve State
Australia aims to position itself as the source of raw minerals for the world.
In 2023, Australia released its Critical Minerals Strategy 2023-2030, which highlights its political, economic, and strategic priorities to attract more sustainable financial investments into the critical minerals sectors.
Australia aims to become a vital player in the upstream and downstream segments of the supply chain, including in mining and processing, leveraging its second position only to China in “exploration investment, reserves, and capital expenditure”.
To fulfil this objective, Australia has established relations with 26 countries globally, including seven—the US, EU, UK, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and India—who are also considered supply chain partners.
India: Manufacturing Hub:
Critical minerals are essential for India’s national security and development. However, this emphasis became noticeable in 2019.
India did not participate in global discussions regarding the dependence on China for critical minerals, following Beijing retaliating against Japan in 2010.
New Delhi’s quest to secure its critical mineral supply chain began after the COVID-19 pandemic and has since accelerated. This was acknowledged by Prahlad Joshi, Former Indian Minister of Coal and Mines, who emphasised that “this is the first time our country has identified the comprehensive list of critical minerals taking into account the needs of sectors like defence, agriculture, energy, pharmaceutical, telecom etc.”
This was the result of disruptions in the raw material supply chain and its increased dependence on other countries, including China, for minerals such as lithium and lithium-ion imports.
However, the India-China border conflict was one of the crucial factors in reaffirming India’s strategic concerns regarding China, including its dependence for critical minerals.
Recently, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, while addressing a strategic community gathering, emphasised India’s critical mineral vulnerability without naming China, saying, “While scramble for resources for economic reasons has had a long history, their weaponisation by some nations for strategic reasons is a comparatively new phenomenon. These tendencies are not conducive for the global good”
In 2023, the India released its first list, which comprised 30 critical minerals.
To fulfil the new vision, India began focusing on unexploited minerals domestically, based on two pillars: making the mining process for critical minerals easy and business-friendly and fostering international cooperation with resource-rich countries.
To facilitate the first pillar, in 2023, India introduced the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulations) Amendment (MMDR) bill to liberalise the mining sector and passed the bill through parliament.
For instance, the government delisted six minerals from the atomic list, facilitating mining by private players and allowing the government to auction.
Subsequently, the government announced the royalty rates for 24 critical minerals, as mentioned in Part D of the first schedule of the MMDR Act.
India’s Import Dependence on Third Countries for Critical Minerals
India has now adopted a whole-system approach to securing critical minerals supply chains, focusing on coordinating with stakeholders from industry, academia, think tanks, and public and private sectors to bring together and leverage the capacities of different ministries and private companies to promote critical mineral mining, extraction, and processing.
This vision was first partially stated in National Mineral Policy (NMP) 2019, which stressed a more effective, meaningful, and implementable policy that brings transparency, better regulation and enforcement, balanced social and economic growth, and sustainable mining practices.
India has also joined global initiatives on critical minerals, such as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and the Mineral Security Partnership, to further the vision in line with the NMP 2019, which states that “particular attention will be given to the prospecting and exploration of minerals in which the country has a poor resource-cum-reserve base despite having the geological potential for large resources.”
The progress achieved till date is evident in the increased exploration projects approved in India since 2019, However, responses following three tranches of auctions among private players has been lacklustre.
For international collaborations on critical minerals, the Indian government created a public-sector enterprise called Khanjij Bidesh Private Ltd. (KABIL) in 2019, which aims to identify and acquire overseas mineral resources such as lithium, cobalt, and other minerals.
So far, KABIL has finalised agreements with Australia and Argentina and is finalising a deal with Chile. Additionally, India is reported to be in talks with Sri Lanka for acquiring graphite mines in the island state.
United States: Technology Leader
Critical minerals form an essential part of the US Grand Strategy, which aims to maintain its supremacy in the digital era, where it faces strict competition from China.
Mineral resources can also help the US secure its future through green energy transition and advanced defence manufacturing, which will scale according to the increasing demand for critical minerals.
Therefore, unlike other countries that look at the critical mineral supply chain issue from the perspective of economic opportunities, the US seeks to eliminate existing strategic impediments that may threaten its position as the global technological leader, which necessitates its control over the supply chain.
Accordingly, the US strategy is based on four pillars: “Diversifying supplies of critical minerals and materials; Developing alternatives to critical minerals and materials; Improving materials and manufacturing efficiency; and Investing in circular-economy approaches.”
In 2022, the United States Geographical Survey (USGS) released a list of 50 minerals categorised as critical. The Department of Energy also released their critical mineral lists in 2023.
Currently, the US is entirely dependent on third countries (including China) for 12 critical minerals and 50 percent reliant for another 29 critical minerals.
With targets such as reducing greenhouse gases by 2030, achieving net zero by 2050, and carbon-pollution-free electricity by 2035, the US is under increasing pressure to fast-track all its initiatives to meet domestic needs and manufacturing objectives.
To manage its domestic priorities and international commitments and maintain its position as the technology leader, Washington has introduced initiatives such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and other methods such as tariffs, aimed at attracting domestic investment in critical minerals supply chains across all segments and simultaneously limiting Chinese access to the US market.
Among the Quad member states, the US is the only country that has adopted a strong stance regarding critical minerals. The tariffs implemented under US President Joe Biden on critical mineral imports is an example of the extent to which the administration is willing to push against Chinese control over the supply chain.
The US has introduced new, increased tariffs, from 0-25 percent on some critical minerals and 25 percent on graphite and permanent magnets.
The tariffs target the whole supply chain of critical minerals, from mining to processing upstream, midstream, and downstream. Tariffs have also been introduced for EVs, battery parts, lithium-ion EVs, and non-EV batteries.
These steps are part of larger efforts that began in the Biden administration’s second year through the IRA, which restricted EV imports from a “foreign entity of concern”, mainly aimed at stopping the inflow of China-made EVs and providing incentives to promote domestic EV production.
Japan: Capital Provider and Facilitator:
As a resource-scarce country and export-dependent economy, Japan does not hold any major strategic reserves of minerals and depends on third countries, including China, for its critical mineral consumption; for instance, 60 percent of its rare-earth imports come from China.
The consequences of critical mineral supply chain vulnerability were first felt in Japan, when China stopped the export of rare earth elements to the country in 2010.
Since then, Japan has made a consistent effort to de-risk its critical mineral supply chain by focusing on five main pillars.
In 2020, Japan released its International Resource Strategy to secure a stable supply of mineral resources; the strategy focused on stockpiling strategic minerals, including REEs, at 30 days for some metals, 60 days for sensitive metals, and 180 days for highly geopolitically risky metals.
Japan’s dependence of other countries:
The Quad and Critical Minerals: Potential and Opportunities
Since 2021, the Quad has taken steps towards fostering strong cooperation on critical minerals. The private sector-led Quad Investors Network (QUIN) was launched during the second Quad Leaders’ Summit in 2022 and has since worked towards identifying areas of cooperation on the critical mineral supply chain.
Currently, a few Quad members have exclusive critical mineral agreements with each other or are negotiating separate agreements with other members .
In 2023, the US signed an agreement with Japan on critical minerals. In the same year, the US and Australia established a task force focused on “identified areas in which the U.S. and Australian governments can take joint action to increase investment in critical minerals mining and processing projects.”
India has a critical mineral agreement with only Australia and none with the other Quad members.
The Quad has the political will and strategic vision to invest in developing a resilient and secure critical mineral supply chain. Currently, however, the Quad needs an overarching framework on critical minerals.
Quad can bring together Indo-Pacific multilateral initiatives operating in the domain, including the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) and other minilaterals, most of which are being led by the US.
As the demand for green technologies increases, more countries are exploring options to invest in renewable energy sources, which are highly dependent on critical minerals.
For instance, India lacks the technological expertise and skills to benefit from its critical mineral reserves.
Australia has rich sources of critical minerals, including lithium, uranium, and heavy REEs like dysprosium, which can satisfy the growing demand for critical minerals in the Indo-Pacific region.
For its part, India has rich resources of light REEs, such as neodymium and praseodymium, as well as other minerals like iron ore and manganese.
The Quad’s rationale for collaboration should be two fold: first, to create a resilient supply chain to protect its interests and offer alternatives to the region, and second, to ensure that the supply chain is not concentrated in one country.
The latter is necessary as the domination of one player enables market manipulation or economic coercion, further dampening investor interests, affecting government policies, and requiring regular executive intervention.
The Quad must ensure that global markets are not manipulated and can handle supply chain vulnerabilities without external interventions. The grouping needs to align its critical mineral initiatives with the broader Indo-Pacific region to address these issues through minilateral and multilateral efforts such as the IPEF and MSP.
For example, the Quad can identify common minerals for all countries and work on a collaborative mechanism to secure the supply chains for those minerals. Its role should be to diversify the supply chain of critical minerals to provide financial stability to like-minded countries in the region.
Challenges:
Although the Quad members have taken steps to strengthen cooperation in critical minerals, challenges remain. Attempts by Quad members like Australia and the US to restrict domestic Chinese funding in mining have backfired, requiring many projects to be revised.
At the same time, other projects like BHP Group’s Nickel business have become economically unviable. The flood of Chinese minerals into the market has made businesses unviable.
The following paragraphs outline the factors that have contributed to the Quad members’ weakening position vis-a-vis China:
1) Lack of economic realism:
Quad members’ attempts to emerge as alternatives to China have not succeeded due to ill-informed expectations. For example, despite Australia’s efforts to diversify its consumers, China remains the largest market for Australian and Australia-produced critical minerals, including rare-earths, amounting to US$100 billion.
For example, nickel prices crashed from US$45,000 in March 2022 to US$15,900 in 2023, forcing Western companies like BHP Australia to cease operations.
This was a consequence of Indonesia ramping up production of nickel, with 95 percent of the ferronickel that was produced being exported to China.
2) Lack of understanding of critical mineral supply chain and industry demand:
There is a lack of expertise in next-generation technology, production costs, and transitional material development in the downstream segment of the supply chain, such as in advanced battery materials research and development. Therefore, most of the strategic investments in critical minerals and rare-earths remain removed from reality, which further jeopardises mining investments.
Research on new battery technologies for replacing minerals like lithium and cobalt are not considered in investment decisions, which poses risks for capital investments in the sector. Meanwhile, China has invested billions in new technologies such as semi-solid-state, solid-state, and sodium-ion batteries and is working on sodium-ion cells that have the potential to lower production costs.
3) Policy uncertainty
This remains a challenge for all Quad partners. Unlike the centralised political system in China, Quad democracies have decentralised decision-making at the federal and provincial levels.
For instance, markets and companies cannot be forced to invest in projects that undermine geopolitical and economic rationales.
One example is ESG. The Quad’s prospects in critical mineral mining have not fructified due to its strict emphasis on ESG compliance and lack of intra-grouping agreement.
For instance, India’s approach towards ESG remains underdeveloped, and there is a lack of clarity and convergence with the Western approach towards ESG, even in specific sectors like critical minerals mining.
4) Risk of a zero-sum game
Establishing an alternative, resilient, and secure supply chain will have its disadvantages. Beijing views joint efforts such as these to be targeted towards diminishing Chinese hegemony and is reciprocating with critical minerals restrictions and curbs.
These actions risk starting a zero-sum game involving the Quad members, paving the way for a further fragmentation of the supply chain.
Conclusion:
Emerging technologies like EVs, semiconductor chips, batteries, and green technologies will drive the next industrial revolution.
States that have control over the building blocks of these technologies, i.e., critical minerals and their supply chain, will control supply, set standards, and influence prices.
At present, China controls the entire supply chain of minerals, from extracting and processing to value addition.
In the case of third countries, the supply chain becomes intertwined with geopolitics and industrial policy, which poses a threat to states dependent on China for their mineral needs.
Therefore, it is essential for like-minded countries, particularly groups like the Quad, to mobilise resources, capital, and expertise to support an alternative supply chain that is robust, resilient, and trustworthy towards achieving mineral security.
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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.