Link to India Growth Story – Progress, Myths, Looking Ahead – 3 of 5
So far, covered Life expectancy, IMR, Child Mortality Rate, Immunization, Maternal Deaths, Birth Rate, Total Fertility Rate, and Population in earlier installments. Let’s take a look at Literacy rate, Access to Electricity, and Gender Parity in this Part.
Education and literacy are other key indicators that needs to progress along with health. Literacy rate, adult literacy rate as per World Bank definition is the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life. As per 2011 census, we stand at 69% overall against Female percentage at 59%. We have made progress (48% in 1991 to 69% in 2016), but we still have good amount of runway to cover. Literacy rate has direct impact on rest of indicators – health, TFR, GDP, etc. Going to next level of detail, rate goes down in low income group. Contrary to beliefs, literacy rates of Iran and Saudi Arabia are much higher even for females, stands at 80% and 91% respectively.
Source: The World Bank: Gender Data India: Education
Access to electricity, as per World Bank definition is the percentage of population with access to electricity. This shows the availability of infrastructure, and access. Doesn’t mean 24 hours of power supply though. Availability (or non-availability) of electricity directly impacts various other indicators, education, health, productivity, GDP. Progress is still impressive, going from 30% in 1990 to 77% in 2016 in rural electrification. Machinery is a bit slow to the liking, but moving forward.
Urban:
Rural:
Source: The World Bank: Energy & Mining: Access to Electricity
How are we doing against gender parity? World Bank has a beautiful repot on Gender Parity Index (GPI) for each country. Few samples below for India. Message is clear: women’s participation is still low (except in agriculture).
Source: The World Bank: Gender Data India: Economic Opportunities, Education
While the women literacy rate is high as income level goes up, and the gap narrows at high income groups, it is reverse in labor participation. Women’s participation in work force goes down as income level goes up. At low income group, it is understandable women has to work as a necessity. Mostly it comes from agriculture, textile, and other unorganized sectors. What could be the reason behind low women labor force participation in middle- and high-income groups while literacy rate is high among them? Dictated by culture or by choice? Is the lack of corporate support with maternity leave, child care, and other facilities making them leave the work force? I would say it is a combination of those. Change has to come from the top and from the ground level, families. For the change in the top to happen, first we need to get proportional representation of women in Assemblies, Parliaments, and ministerial posts. Currently we have 62 women MPs in current Lok Sabha, out of 543, at 12%, a marginal increase from previous one (58), and the highest in the history of the country. In an ideal world, this would be at 50%. But just getting this number to say 150+, would ensure voices are heard, and not drowned, and make sure gender centric policies get enforced (they do exist on paper at this time). At corporate level, they need to look in to reason for % of women work force going down post marriage and address the reasons for dip in percentage. At family level is where the big social change needs to happen, they need to come out of patriarchal mindset and don’t differentiate between a girl and boy child bring-up. We would need affirmative policies to effect changes.
[TO BE CONTINUED…]