A force more powerful

While government policies have focused on education alone, the overwhelming complexity of gender equity warrants wide-ranging, large-scale radical policies to arrest the disturbing trend of a low and declining female LFPR, notes Sanjay Kaul

Sanjay Kaul

The Congress party’s spectacular success in Karnataka is being attributed to a significant extent to its five guarantees, of which two relate to women — the Gruha Lakshmi scheme to provide a monthly payment of Rs 2,000 to women head of households and the Uchita Prayana scheme to provide free bus travel to all women across the State. Are these guarantees in the nature of freebies or can they be steps in transforming women’s livelihoods?

It is a fact that despite rapid economic growth, educational gains, and fertility decline, India’s women have remained conspicuously absent from the labour force. India will fail to leverage its huge demographic dividend potential if women who constitute half of the population are not provided access to the workplace. The time for government action is NOW.

There is evidence that asset cash transfers to female members can have a positive and empowering effect. In this sense, the guarantee of a monthly cash transfer to women heads of households can be termed a transformative step. Similar actions are required in respect of land and property. Though several states have enacted laws granting women the right to ancestral land, they own merely 11 percent of land across the country. The most effective way would be to legislate that all land and house titles are automatically passed on to women and male heirs equally on the demise of a household member.

Further, a key barrier to women’s access to the workplace is due to inadequate and unsafe transport arrangements for commuting to the workplace. While making bus travel free would provide women ease of mobility, this can only be a first step. There is a need for transport systems, including pedestrian paths that must be radically transformed and upgraded to enable women to commute safely to the workplace and back home.

Any government action focused on women needs appreciation as India ranks 135 out of 146 countries on the gender gap index with an abysmally low female Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of 23 percent. Women’s employment is largely in agriculture and in low-paid, unskilled jobs that reflect a regressive form of feminisation. At the higher end of the value chain, women’s participation is limited; only 20 percent of new jobs in finance, construction, and business services go to women.

Gender attitudes

Patriarchal attitudes require women to prioritise housework and constrain married women from working. Ancient religious codes and ethics have perpetuated these patriarchal attitudes. Women often internalise these views and differences between men and women in their gender attitudes. These norms are typically more binding among wealthier, upper-caste households, suggesting that neither education nor economic growth alters patriarchal influence. Though enrolment of women in higher education has risen to close to fifty percent, female LFPR has shown a disturbing decline. While government policies have focused on education alone, the overwhelming complexity of gender equity warrants the government to have wide-ranging, large-scale radical policies to arrest the disturbing trend of a low and declining female LFPR.

Current government policy responses rely on ineffectual schemes such as the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’, which have not dented societal mindsets. Government must prioritise direct actions at changing patriarchal practices that include the tradition of the woman joining her husband’s family, expecting her allegiance to her in-laws, and the iniquitous intestate succession.

Breaking gender stereotypes calls for bold and sustained country-wide communication and sensitisation campaigns by the government, which include sharing evidence of the positive contribution of women.

Target regressive views

Communication messages must go beyond billboard exhortations on the value of the girl child and move on to real issues of adult women. They must seek to change the stereotyped perception of what educational choices, jobs, and roles are suitable for women. In communication campaigns, highlighting successful women role models is an effective way to encourage women to make atypical choices. Unfortunately, in recent days women wrestlers who are ideal role models, instead of being applauded have been the subject of vilification and harassment. Communication campaigns must be backed by village-level massive sensitisation programmes both for women and men. They must specifically target the highly regressive views of several non-formal organisations such as Khap Panchayats. Programmes must emphasise that household and parental responsibilities are not a woman’s alone. Gender bias in education must be equally addressed, with actions not limited to making a few cosmetic changes in textbooks. Gender equality must become a key objective of the school curriculum and boys must learn to deconstruct the patriarchal conception of masculinity and in place construct positive egalitarian beliefs.

Gender-friendly actions

Along with communication and sensitisation programmes, and actions for asset/cash transfer and improvements to women’s ability that we have noted, governments must prioritise the following comprehensive set of six gender-friendly actions.

First, it must leverage the mobilisation of close to 90 million women in self-help groups (SHGs) which presents a huge opportunity. SHGs at present largely cater to the consumption needs of poor households. There is a need to transform the entire micro-credit system to shift focus to livelihood finance. Micro-finance institutions such as SEWA and BASIX, have already reworked their strategy and offer microcredit along with an integrated suite of products and services that covers insurance, business development services, and market linkages. As microcredit comes at a very high-interest rate, government policy must incentivise and promote microcredit that is linked to business or livelihood finance, through specific measures such as a loan default guarantee and interest rate subvention.

Secondly, governments must work closely with the private sector to design and impart meaningful skilling programmes for women. Though women are enrolling in large numbers in educational institutions, they do not get jobs as they lack the necessary skills. Skilling programmes should specifically target women wishing to re-enter the workforce after marriage.

The third strategy to improve women’s employment is reservation in government jobs and professional courses. Fifty percent reservation of teacher posts under the centre’s Operation Blackboard scheme led to a vast increase in the recruitment of women teachers. Similarly, the initial decision to reserve 30 percent reservation of women in the National Law Schools, has over the years led to over forty percent enrolment of women in law schools — a profession that historically had few women. Reservation of seats for women in engineering and business management courses can have a similar cascading positive impact.

Fourthly, the government must address the absence of a suitable support system for child care that acts as a huge barrier for women wishing to go out to work. Only a handful of companies have set up crèches despite the mandate under the Maternity Benefit Act. Along with strict enforcement of rules, the government must provide financial support to set up crèche facilities. For women in the unorganised sector, there is a need for the government to progressively upgrade anganwadis into anganwadi-cum-crèches and set up creches under MGNREGA — the employment guarantee scheme already mandates the setting up of crèches at work sites.

Fifth would be labour laws and the Factories Act that must become gender-friendly. Even when women are willing to work night shifts, discriminatory provisions in the Factories Act prohibit women from doing so. It is equally imperative for the government to make gender equity a key element in regulating and overseeing companies; however, the approach must be supportive and facilitative.

Finally, in formulating gender discrimination policies, the government must include LGBTQIA groups, that face a heightened level of social discrimination because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

(Sanjay Kaul is a development policy analyst, and author of An Alternative Development Agenda for India, published by Routledge.)