A silent revolution over the last decade has had significant implications on fertility rates and the economy.
As more women are turning towards higher education and correspondingly better employment opportunities, they are delaying childbirth and having fewer children.
With Indian women pursuing higher education in larger numbers, they must be empowered to contribute to the nation’s growth.
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The National Fertility and Health Survey-4 shows that India’s fertility rates have dramatically dropped to 2.18, below replacement rate. Demographics are changing across the socio-religious spectrum and are strongly correlated with women’s education and literacy. In this article, we look at women’s progress in higher education to further understand this demographic change.
Higher education statistics published by AISHE, MHRD (Table 1) from 2011-12 to 2017-18 shows an increasing trend. Total number of males enrolled increased by 30.3 lakhs, 18.7 per cent in 6 years, while the number of women enrolled increased by 44.3 lakhs, a whopping 34 per cent rise.
The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for total enrollment is 3.87 per cent, with males at 2.9 per cent and females at 5 per cent. The percentage of women rose from 44.6 per cent in 2011-12 to 47.6 per cent in 2017-18. More women are pursuing higher education now than ever before.
Extrapolating the data out to 2030 (Fig 1) indicates the number of women pursuing higher education might soon exceed men. 2024-25 could see a normalization between genders, and 2029-30 could see as much as 53 per cent enrollment of women, a dramatic shift. Many countries around the world have undergone this. In the United States, according to official statistics, 56 per cent of undergraduates are women. India is following this trend.
The silent revolution
The total Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in age 18-23 is steadily increasing from 20.8 in 2011-12 to 25.8 in 2017-18 (Table 2). Male enrollment increased from GER of 22.1 to 26.3, a 19 per cent increase. Female enrollment rose even faster, with a GER under 20 to 25.4, a significant jump of 30 per cent. The GER between genders is normalizing, again indicating that more women are turning towards higher education to improve their livelihood.
These trends show a silent revolution over the last decade, with significant implications on fertility rates and the economy. It would seem that as more women are turning towards higher education and correspondingly better employment opportunities, they are delaying childbirth and having fewer children. Higher education is one of the contributors to the levelling off of population growth.
With India’s 28 states having diverse economic conditions, variance in state-wise GER is huge. Table 3(a) contains GER of representative states in North and South India for 2011-12 and 2017-18.
On an average, North Indian states have much lower GER compared to South, and the divergence is increasing. GER also correlates with development — Bihar’s GER moved nominally by 0.5 in six years and also trails in development metrics.
The population-weighted averages of representative North and South Indian states are computed in Table 3(b).
Significant observations are:
- Both the North and South GER have progressed significantly in the last decade. North Indian states have progressed by 4.88 points and South Indian states by 6.33 points from 2011-12 to 2017-18.
- The difference between the Northern and Southern states of India is striking. On average, the GER of South Indian states is ahead of the North Indian states by 13.37 points in 2017-18.
- Women are progressing faster than men. In North India, the average female GER jumped 5.91 points from 2011-12 to 2017-18, whereas the male GER moved 4.03 points. In South India, the female GER jumped 6.67 points whereas the male GER moved 4.49 points.
Financial status of Indian women has dramatically increased
At the time of Independence, policymakers did not focus on educating women. As a result, household income and India’s GDP did not grow as much as it could have. Contrast this with China — with the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Chairman Mao famously said, ‘Women hold up half the sky,’ and instituted strict policies to educate women. The result is evident today in the women’s workforce participation and contribution to China’s GDP and its outstanding rise as a ‘Top 2’ economy.
With Indian women pursuing higher education in larger numbers, they must be empowered to contribute to the nation’s growth. It is opportune for India to leverage this economic multiplier to its GDP as it sets the course to achieve the $10 trillion mark.
Quality employment opportunities is the need of the hour
The need of the hour today is to provide the educated population with quality employment prospects. These must include incentives for participation of women in the workforce. Many women in India are primary caregivers of their children and other family members. Employment policies must take these aspects into consideration so that women can have the flexibility to work around their schedules. Otherwise, well-educated women will have no option but to drop out of the workforce, which will be a loss for everyone — from the individual, to her family, to the nation.
Fertility survey data indicates there will be fewer young people twenty years from now. This will result in India’s workforce shrinking rapidly while supporting an ageing population. If more women are incentivized to work, they will contribute to society and the GDP for a long time, especially given that Indian lifespans and general well-being are also increasing.
Policy can also examine which fields women are pursuing more and focus on retention there. AISHE data shows that for the first time in 2017-18, enrollment in M.B.B.S. had more women — 50.3 per cent — than men. If workforce participation of women doctors is improved through policy, this could transform India’s healthcare system.
Are women in India overtaking men?
The next pertinent question is, ‘are women in India overtaking men?’ and how to deal with this. In South India, educational institutions are resorting to interesting ways of handling the inversion. For example, some pre-university colleges in Bangalore are applying a higher cut-off percentage for women applicants. While this might not be the fairest way, we certainly see a possibility of a ceiling — say 60 per cent — imposed on women enrollment.
The data from the AISHE and NFHS surveys indicate that the best investment India can make towards economic prosperity and societal progress is in higher education and employment prospects for women.
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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.