How to reduce the gender gap in States?

Raising the presence of women in education, employment and the political process must be accorded priority

In NITI Aayog’s first report on Sustainable Development Goals, all States, barring Kerala and Sikkim, are in the red on gender equality (SDG-5). There are several reasons why freeing women from all forms of discrimination seems like a lofty goal.
First, as highlighted in ‘Economic Survey 2018’, India’s continued obsession with boy child and selective abortion have resulted in over 63 million “missing” women while also creating a category of 21 million “unwanted” girls. Second, the drop-out rate for girls continues to be higher, especially at the secondary and higher education levels. Third, despite education and employment, Indian women spend ten times more hours on unpaid household chores than men.
And, fourth, an improvement in the income of male workers, coupled with the shortage of flexible work opportunities and inadequate infrastructure, have discouraged the participation of women in productive economic activities.
The government is implementing several initiatives to address these challenges, including ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’, ‘Pradhan Mantri Matritva Vandana Yojana’ and the Maternity Benefit Act. So what needs to be done to make SDG-5 achievable for all States by 2030?
Given the multi-dimensional nature of issues facing women, it is critical that we develop a set of indicators on which progress is measured on a regular basis. As suggested by NITI Aayog in its ‘Strategy for New India @ 75’ document, a dedicated unit should be established within the Women and Child Development Ministry and its State-level counterparts for monitoring progress on gender-related targets across ministries.

Sex ratio at birth

States need to strengthen the monitoring of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 for ensuring its stringent implementation. Investments in locally customised information, education and communication campaigns also need to be enhanced, including offering rewards for districts that achieve the desired sex ratio. Of course, such campaigns should not focus on families ‘Below the Poverty Line’ alone but also engage families from higher wealth quintiles.
Identifying girls who are at risk of dropping out of school and those who have already dropped out is crucial. An electronic national educational registry for tracking every child could be a possible avenue for doing this. Relatively higher financial incentives also need to be provided for delaying child marriage.
Conditional cash transfer schemes like the ‘Kanyashree Prakalpa’, which has been successful in promoting girls’ education in West Bengal, need to be replicated. The Post Graduate Indira Gandhi Scholarship for Single Girl Child scheme could also be extended to families with two girl children. Of course, investments in safe transport options such as Bihar’s bicycle distribution scheme and school infrastructure, especially provision of separate toilets and sanitary napkins, need to be stepped up considerably.

Employment

Defining time-bound targets for reversing the decline in the female labour force participation is a must. The implementation of legal frameworks like the Maternity Benefit Amendment Act needs to be monitored and incentivised if necessary, especially to catalyse the initial adoption of such progressive legislation by the private sector.
NITI’s ‘Strategy for New India @ 75’ suggests providing tax benefits to sectors or companies that employ over 30 per cent of women workers. Skill training programmes also need to be reoriented to focus on training women in non-traditional areas like construction and taxi-driving. Further, the progressive integration of women who work in the informal sector with the formal economy needs to be achieved through effective implementation of legal and social protection measures. The private sector, too, must play its part. Barely 5 per cent of companies on the Bombay Stock Exchange currently have women CEOs. Bringing about transparency in recruitment and promotion policies and correcting any gender biases that creep into wages are vital as is ensuring strict implementation of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act.
While increasing women’s participation in politics has been one of the most intractable challenges, it remains absolutely critical for achieving gender equity. The 33.3 per cent reservation in Panchayati Raj Institutions (now 50 per cent in some States) has enabled over one million women to participate in local governance every five years. This needs to be replicated at all levels of the governance system.
Thus, while there is no magic bullet for bridging the gender gap, concerted policy actions along with the efforts of the private sector and citizens can make the achievement of SDG-5 by 2030 a reality.
The writers are Public Policy Specialist and Young Professional, respectively, at NITI Aayog. The views expressed are personal

Why the gender gap persists in Indian workplaces?

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that equal participation of women in the workforce will increase India’s GDP manifold. A McKinsey Global Institute study calculated that the economic impact of achieving gender equality in India is estimated to be US $700 billion of added GDP by the year 2025.

Yet the participation of women in India’s workforce has been abysmal and is one of the lowest in the world.  Women’s participation in India’s workforce stands at under 28%. According to the Global Gender Gap report released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2017, which ranks countries on parameters of gender equality in health, education, economics, and politics, India finished 139 out of 144 countries on economic participation and opportunity. Despite managing to bridge the gender gap in enrolment in primary and tertiary education, India ranked 112 on the education attainment metric. Overall, India ranked 108 out of 144 countries.

Why is India leaving its women behind? Do Indian women self-select themselves into unfavourable career choices as adults, given their primary responsibility of caring for children and running the household? Is it that women who focus on pursuing professional careers cannot maintain a work-family balance as costs of child care increase and there are few alternative part-time employment options? Do women opt out of formal employment?

Researchers Amit Jain Chauradia, Chandrasekhar Sripada and Glory George investigated the career choices of women, within the context of the short-term skill development training activities of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY).  These researchers conducted an ethnographic study to understand the PMKVY ecosystem and the importance of key constructs such as gender and placement. To understand the nuances behind the ‘skills-to-jobs conundrum’ in India, they further analysed a large dataset with over a million observations.

Impact with skill development?
Inadequate training infrastructure, outdated curricula and stigma towards the vocational education system have long jinxed the skill development ecosystem in India. Long-term training programmes for teaching industrial trades are unpopular. They have high dropout rates and diminishing enrolment. To remedy this state of affairs, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship was created to provide skill development and entrepreneurship programmes through a streamlined institutional mechanism.

Often in developing economies, government-sponsored training programmes act as tools for integrating the unemployed and economically disadvantaged into the mainstream workforce. These programmes allow beneficiaries sufficient time to move through basic education and job training to obtain occupational certificates. On the other end of the institutional spectrum, they offer incentives to entities that provide support to such programmes

S. Korea to create posts for gender equality in gov't offices

South Korea will set up new departments dedicated to handling gender equality policies in eight government offices to better deal with sexual discrimination and abuse in the cultural and educational sectors, the gender ministry said Tuesday.

Under a plan endorsed by the Cabinet , the new posts will be established at eight government offices, including the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the National Police Agency, according to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

(Yonhap)

The move came after MeToo revelations in art, movie, sports and educational circles swept the country last year, with renowned poet Ko Un and other actors embroiled.

The new departments will be assigned to oversee policies on gender discrimination and sexual violence in their organizations, and help them consider gender equality in the policymaking process.

The gender equality ministry said it will run a consultation body of the gender equality departments on a regular basis. (Yonhap)

Make Gender Equality a Value, Not a Priority

Inside our organizations, what’s the difference between a “priority” and a “value”?
It may seem like a semantic question. It isn’t. The difference is critical and key to making big changes happen. To make gender equality a reality — from the boardroom and C-suite to front-line employees — organizations need to shift their thinking around values.
Priorities can change at any time. Values do not. Values and beliefs drive culture and behaviors.
I’ve seen this cultural shift happen with another crucial workplace issue: safety. For 10 years, I worked as a safety executive in oil and gas companies. After years of devastating accidents and injuries, rapid improvements followed. An analyst said the industry was becoming one of the safest. Annual accident records show the turnaround continuing.
This happened over time because the industry changed its approach, making safety a value and not a priority. Total, a multinational energy conglomerate, puts it this way: “Safety is more than just a priority. It’s a core value and the basis of our strategy.” The American Petroleum Institute similarly described safety as a core value for the natural gas and oil industry. In making this shift, the industry began to ensure that safety was baked into every decision, at every level.
It’s time to do the same for gender equality across numerous industries, including oil and gas, where women make up only 15% of the workforce (and even less among higher-paid technical jobs).
I left my former work in energy safety culture to focus full time on rectifying this problem. The business incentives are clear. As McKinsey notes: “Research supports that diverse and inclusive teams tend to be more creative and innovative than homogenous groups.” Gender equality leads to greater psychological safety. And boosting women in the energy industry will also help advance efforts to protect the climate. Women on average place greater importance on the environment.
A few years ago, a group of oil and gas companies at the World Economic Forum issued a call to action to close the gender gap. My organization Pink Petro gathered stakeholders from across the sector to offer recommendations on how to achieve this, and I recently testified in Congress on this subject.
Here are some of the steps organizations within any industry can take to make gender equality a strategic value.