Dear Students,
We have been keeping busy for the past few days due to the MAINS exam, speaking to our students,guiding them and counselling them.
Last year we conducted the Essay Test series and Thank you all those who joined us.The Essay papers in MAINS came on predicted lines and many of our Essays appeared in the Exam and we sincerely hope that our reviews helped the students to write a better essay in the exam.
Our test series covered 6 out of the 8 topics asked by UPSC this year “(Some directly and some indirectly . Indirectly implies the topic might be different but the theme is more or less in line with the UPSC question)
The Essay Topics in the Mains Exam are :-
Section – A
- If development is not engendered , it is endangered.
- Need brings greed, if greed increases it spoils breed.
- Water disputes between States in federal India
- Innovation is the key determinant of economic growth and social welfare
Section-B
- Cooperative Federalism- Myth or Reality
- Cyberspace and Internet :Blessing or Curse to the Human civilization in the long run.
- Near Jobless Growth in India; An anomaly or an outcome of economic reforms
- Digital Economy: A leveller or a source of economic inequality.
Analysis :-
The Essay that appeared from our test series – directly/indirectly
In our Essay Test Series – 01 , we gave these topics :-
-
India- Island of prosperity in the sea of poverty.
- This topic resonates with the ” Digital Economy: A leveller or a source of economic inequality“
- The similarity between the two topics is that :-
- Digital Economy represents the service and IT sector growth in India post-1991 reform which resulted in massive GDP growth, however it did not benefit all sections.The very nature of job requires high-skill and hence those who could afford education and got the skillset did benefits from it where as the fruits of the development did not reach all sections of society which resulted in skewed Human Development Index.Only few states of India fared batter.This abrupt jump from primary sector to tertiary sector without a robust manufacturing base resulted in ” Islands of prosperity in sea of poverty”
- The essay can be approached in two ways :-
- First take a stand and then justify it through out your essay
- Or Put everything on the canvas and then deduce your analysis from it
- Both approaches works well for this kind of essays, so it is up-to you how you want to play your cards.The main point is if the flow is intact and the essay is interesting it will sail through.
- Here is a deductive approach to the essay :-
- In Deductive approach you can break-down in to following questions:-
- What is digital economy ?
- Did it gave rise to inequality – Inter-country , Intra-country,Inter-continental etc.
- What are reasons for inequality ?
- Is it a leveller ?
- Is it a more of leveller or a source of inequality ?
- Way forward/Conclusion
- Briefly discuss what digital economy entails , what is its genesis- Link it with 3rd and 4th Industrial revolution (We have published many good articles on these themes)
- Then take a global perspective, how those who have access to technology fare well.
- Give example of Japan , South Korea,USA etc
- The growth in digital economy widened the gulf of economic inequality between countrie – Inter-country inequality.
- Then discuss the case of India as per the aforementioned theme- Intra-country inequality.
- This would justify the inequality portion of the topic.
- Then show how it is a leveller too.
- Show how, although the initial round of benefits cornered by few countries, now the rest of the countries are catching up.
- For example – Countries like India , China, Philippines etc are catching up and cornering the market due to their massive investment in Human capital
- Show how, digital economy is removing the middle man thus giving a level playing field to farmers and agro-economy , Link it with e-NAM , Handicaraft etc
- Discuss how it is changing the nature of politics and creating a more just society and governance
- Removing Corruption , bringing transparency etc thus a leveller
- However discuss this particular point briefly as it does not cater to the need of the topic of digital economy directly, although it does cater to the leveller part of the essay, so small discussion is good but it should not be stretched too far.
- It also a a great leveller as far as information asymmetry is concerned.Information is the bread and butter of digital economy.
- Then give few example how it is integrating the rural hinterland and giving them access to a larger market through e-commerce.Also discuss how Digital India can be a game changer in this regard.
- Give example of Taobao Village of China and Akodara Vilage of India
- Many more examples can be thought of.
- In conclusion, mention that although digital economy initially showed disruptive tendencies , however it is far more of a leveller than just being a source of economic inequality.The Essay should be such that , although it is a source of economic inequality – the inequality can be fought with investment in human capital and smart policy.The problem is not about the technology or digital economy per se, as such technology is not bad, the real question is how our policy makers deal with it.When they lack foresight and vision, we are caught off-guard. Inequality due to digital economy is not due to digital economy but due to bad policy.Thus squarely blaming it not justified.
- There is a book on this – ‘Digital Economy’ , it was coined in Don Tapscott’s 1995 book The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence.The Digital Economy was among the first books to consider how the Internet would change the way we did business.If USA has e-bay or Amazon, India has Flipkart or Snapdeal or Infibeam and more importantly the Alibaba from China is beating all of them and a great example how with right push and policy India can be a global player in this arena too.
- In Deductive approach you can break-down in to following questions:-
- The topic which we gave is more specific to India however the topic in the exam demands a broader approach.
-
Cyber world- its charm and challenges.
- This is the 2nd topic out of 4 essays in our First Essay Test and resonates well with the topic of the exam – “Cyberspace and Internet :Blessing or Curse to the Human civilization in the long run”
- In this topic you have to discuss both – the issues and the benefits , however nowhere you should mention that it is a curse, because it is not.There are problems such as “globalization of terrorism” ,cyber stalking ,cyber bullying , right to privacy, piracy and many other such issues but internet as such is definitely not a curse.
- As the topic mentions civilization , you can stretch to every possible way- social, political, economy , national security and cyber war and the list will be endless because it affects every aspect of our life.Internet is Mankind’s greatest creation , ever.Period.There is no doubt about it.
- If we write an essay on this topic, we might end up writing a book because the topic is that vast.So the key in this essay is how you handle such a massive data and perspective in 1200 words, So you have to be very choosy on selecting the themes for this essay and you must choose few good ones.One key issue which we found in reviewing the paper of students for this essay was that , for most part they are stating the obvious, which may kill the interest in the essay.
- Most of the students would have written this essay, so if you choose your theme wisely , you will fare better.In this kind of essay , everyone has content , the scoring part thus relies on how you represent it and make it reading-worthy.And we are certain of few of our students who would have written magnificent essay on this topic.
In our Essay Test Series – 04 , we gave this topic :-
-
Technology is the biggest enabler of human race than sum of everything else ever will be.
- This topic resonates well with the topic in the exam- “Innovation is the key determinant of economic growth and social welfare”
- In this topic you have to show how Innovation in technology has been changing the course of human race.You can start with Invention of Wheel or Fire , but don’t dwell too much on the past.
- Then you can jump to invention of Printing press and Internet and how they have shaped our economy and society altogether.
- You can also take examples from other field such as invention of medicine such as Penicillin etc
- The content can be vast so choose topics that are interesting and choose wisely.
- You can give examples of the age of Industrial revolution and how it was propelled by innovation and how it changed economy and society.
- To justify the “Key determinant” word of the topic , you have to pit technology against other drivers of society such as economy, tradition, culture etc and then show how innovation changes the course – it not only impacts economy, but society and culture and even religious belief too (Few years ago – Polio and Leprosy were thought to be the curse of the gods or results of bad karma in present or past life until the invention of medicine and vaccines for these diseases- No no one thinks it a result of bad karma anymore or curse of some supernatural god)
- We have given many good points in our personalized feedback, if you have inculcated them in your essay then it will fetch you very good marks.Fairly simple topic , and probably most attempted topic so you have bring some brilliance in to the essay to make it more interesting.
- One can not generate brilliance in 3 hours in exam hall, hence if you have written these topics and got the reviews and implemented the feedback- you will do well.
In our Essay Test Series – 06 , we gave these topics :-
-
There is no meaning of economic prosperity if it is not accompanied by social justice.
- This topic sits well with the topic in the exam – “If development is not engendered , it is endangered “
- However the only difference is the topic in our test series is broad where as the topic in the exam in little narrow.In our topic you not only have to discuss gender justice , but other aspects of social justice as well including environmental justice, right to health, right to food, right to livelihood etc, but the essay topic in the exam is more specific to gender justice and the essay can be written beautifully.
- In short you can discuss these themes in this topic:-
- Are women getting fair deal and really reaping the benefits of development.
- You can also discuss , although women have far more greater access to employment now and they can have financial autonomy, however the social prejudice are still prevalent.
- One essay topic which we gave in our test series can be discussed here- “Are the working women getting fair deal- balancing home and work“
- In sum , you can discuss on below themes :-
- gender equality
- gender mainstreaming
- Constructive male engagement- it is not about male vs female but male and female both walking together as equal partners.
- Feminism,Women empowerment
- You can also mention , even though there are political parties based on caste or religious lines in India, there are no such party that solely advocates Women’s cause.
- Also mention the irony – That India endured economic progress but it is not in sync with social progress and is vividly visible in Women issues.
- Discuss how if we don’t engender the development process then half of our society will be left behind, and we can not really develop when half of our energy is suppressed.Quote the data from World Bank report which says that if we can bring gender justice the economy will grow by 25% (Published an editorial in this regard as well)
- Discuss Gender Budgeting as well (This was given as a question in one of our Mains test series)
- Quote some data from Gender Inequality Index, Salary Index – Disparity in pay and equal pay for equal work etc to give credibility to your analysis.
-
India’s water woes and way forward.
- This topic is similar to the essay topic of the exam :- “Water disputes between States in federal India”
- The reason they are similar is simple , Indian water woes are leading to scarcity of water and when the issue is politicized then it becomes a federal issues.So in our essay topic , you have to write it primarily as an environmental issues with political tilt and in the essay of the exam you have to primarily write it as a political issues emanating from environmental issues/water woes.(The other way around but more or less content will be same.
- However one of our question is Mains test series is more appropriate with the topic of the essay – “Water reinforcing regionalism….Discuss“
In our essay test series – 10 we gave this topic :-
-
“The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed”
- This topic is similar to – “Need brings greed, if greed increases it spoils breed.”
- The similarity is that you will be discussing similar themes – Need and greed along with breed:-
- The NEED is all about the need for development, more importantly economic development as an enabler for social development and other aspects of human development.
- The GREED is all about the desires which are over and above the NEED, the themes are:-
- Consumerism
- Materialism
- Climate Change and its relation with excessive consumerism
- Link it with the per capita carbon footprint of the world.
- GREED is not only about economic , you can also discuss POLITICAL greed and more importantly GEO-POLITICAL GREED.
- A good example is How Saddam Hussein Oiled the Sea in GULF war leading to environmental crisis and permanent damage to ecosystem.Many more examples can be thought of.
- Then deal with how we are poisoning the BREED – that is our future generation .Discuss HUMAN COST of Pollution (There is question given in our MAINS series as well as an editorial is published in this regard).It should also discuss concept of sustainable development and inter-generation parity.
- The essay should deal how , as Gandhi said , “Fertilizers are good for parents but bad for offspring”
Overall Analysis of the Essay Paper
- 2 Essays are based on federalism and each in one section , so attempt both of them , it will make your essay sound similar.
- 3 essays on technology – Cyber, Innovation and digital economy – The content of these 3 essays is bound to overlap.The single thread that binds 3 of these essays is – Internet.The fact that UPSC asked 3 essays on internet , makes it amply clear of its aura.
- However one theme is found in 5 topics – that is economy:-
- Digital economy essay
- Jobless growth essay
- Innovation and economy
- Development essay – link between economic prosperity and gender justice and gender budgeting
- One environmental theme- Need and Greed essay- however, you can not discuss environment without discussing economy, so again economy essay with environmental tinge
- To put it rather simple, UPSC did not give you 8 essays, it gave you different version of 3 themes (Federalism,Internet and Economy), or better we can squeeze them in to 2 themes (Federalism and Economy) and asked you to write 2.So you essentially had to write 2 essays out of 2 themes, although content and approach may differ but largely they will overlap.
- The General observation is that there was no philosophical essays as such and that is good.Most of the essays were related to current events , so again it is a good trend.
We sincerely hope that you did well.
On a side note – we will soon be launching our Essay Program for 2017 and to be honest , we are happy that we did manage to cater to the needs of UPSC standard.
Last year , our Essay Program was the most enrolled program and this year it will be our flagship program.
Those who are interested to join our program let us know, and we will send you the coupon codes which you can use to get a discount when we launch the program. (Immediately post Mains 2016)
Just drop a mail to us at – upsctree@upsctree.com to receive discount coupon codes.The coupon codes will be provided for those who write to us with regards to joining the test series before 10th December 2016.
Thank You
UPSCTREE Team
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.