What Ails the IAS and Why It Fails to Deliver by Naresh Chandra Saxena

Author:Naresh Chandra Saxena [Saxena, Naresh Chandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789353286491
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2019-09-15T18:30:00+00:00

Social Constraints of Patriarchy on Women

Despite India’s remarkable economic growth over the past two decades, the progress in achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment has been unsatisfactory so far. The ratio of females to males in 2011 for the age group 0–6 is 914 to 1,000, which is the lowest since 1947. This child sex ratio was 945 and 927 in 1991 and 2001, respectively. Thus, rather than showing improvement, it has been going down with every new census report. According to newspaper reports (Times of India, 28 January 2019), sex ratio has fallen even in southern states during 2007–2016.

The literacy rate amongst females ages 7 and above has certainly increased from 54 per cent in 2001 to 65 per cent in 2011, but it is still 17 points less than for men. In 2011, 273 million people in India were still illiterate, out of which two-thirds were women. Gender inequalities are reflected in the country’s human development ranking; India ranks 113 of 157 countries in the Gender-related Development Index. More than 90 per cent of women continue to struggle in the informal/unorganized sector with no legislative safeguards. According to the Global Wage Report (ILO 2018), of the 73 countries studied, India had the dubious distinction of having the highest gap between what men earn and what women do. It was 34.5 per cent for India in 2018 against a world average of 20 per cent.

The prevailing social constraints of patriarchy largely relegate women to the inside sphere. Added to this are the dual responsibilities of women tagged with heavy work responsibilities in agriculture, animal husbandry and other traditional sectors, which create a syndrome of gender stereotypes, marginalization, alienation and deprivation of women in the informal sector. Even when their hard work produces surplus they do not generally control its disposal, which has traditionally been and continues to be in men’s domain.

Women’s unrecognized workload: While women in India have always worked harder than men, their role as workers has not been fully recognized by the planners and policymakers. According to the 68th Round NSSO survey, for the age group 15–59 years, Work Participation Rate (WPR) at the all-India level in 2011–2012 was only 26 per cent for females and 84 per cent for males.5 The reasons for the under-reporting of women as workers are many: women’s work is often informal, unpaid and home-based; it is flexible, non-standard and an extension of domestic work and therefore frequently indistinguishable from it. Greater gender sensitivity is needed to correctly appreciate and record productive nature of women’s work.

In addition to under-reporting, what is even more alarming is the fact that WPR for rural females has been consistently going down since 1983, and has remained as low as 14 per cent for urban females, as shown in Figure 7.1 (based on various NSSO reports).

The decline in the number of female workers is a matter of concern as it increases their dependency on men, and thus strengthens patriarchal norms.

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