• Increasing the Gender equality gap has been a challenge for India in recent years.
• Covid-19 and the economic slowdown due to the Russia- Ukraine war has widened the gap between male and female.
• Yet, India’s G20 presidency is an opportunity to lead the gender equal initiative, especially in South Asia.

Gender Equality in India

South Asia:

• South Asia is home to 860 million women, three-fourths of whom live in India.
• South Asia’s gender gap is at 66%, the second largest out of eight regions monitored by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
• It will take 71 years to close the gender gap.
• The average wage salaries for women remain at around 70% of their male colleagues.

India:

• India ranked 135 out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index for 2022 of WEF.
• Female Labour Force Participation Rate, according to the Economic Survey 2022-23, is pegged at 25.1% in 2020-21.

Economic inequality in India:

• India is the only country where the economic gender gap is wider than its political gender gap.
• Average wage salaries for women remain at around 70% of their male colleagues.
• The expansion of new work opportunities for women in some sectors coexists with continued weak bargaining power in the labour market and an increase in educated aspirational career women entering the workplace, with many still in the low-paid informal sector.

Female-Headed Households:

• Proportion of female-headed households is increasing, but their economic status is worrying.
• According to Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC), most of the 12.8% of the rural women-headed households have a monthly income of less than ₹5,000.
• 23 million households in rural India are headed by women.
• Yet they remain mostly landless or deprived of property rights.
• In 2016 despite women-headed households in India being around 14.6%, women faced high levels of precarity.

Political inequality in India:

• In the recent Lok Sabha elections of 2019, women’s voter turnout exceeded that of men.
• Yet, their representation in Parliament still remains a mere 14.44% in the Lok Sabha and 10.5% in both Houses of Parliament.

Social Inequality in India:

• India’s sex ratio is 898 girls per 1,000 boys.
• India still has among the highest numbers of maternal and infant mortalities in the world.
• Structural and physical violence against women increased in India.

Challenges:

• The growing numbers of women farmers in the non-cash crop sectors raise issues around the feminization of agriculture.
• The lack of entitlements to land and asset ownership.
• Patriarchal structures and social taboos regarding marriage and inheritance.
• Increase in structural and physical violence against women.

Government’s efforts

• India has enacted progressive legislation to provide equal opportunities to women and secure their safety and dignity.
• These include:
• Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005,
• Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Prevention Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013,
• Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006,
• Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, and
• 2015 amendments to laws on the rights of Hindu women to property and inheritance.

Opportunities:

• India’s presidency of the G20 is an opportunity to amplify the voice of the Global South and be the bridge between the developed and developing economies.
• The vision of the global compact in Agenda 2030, reflected in the SDGs, encapsulates the “5 Ps”: people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnerships.
• It demonstrates a call to co-create a more just world order that leaves no one behind and underscores the shared (although differentiated) responsibilities of all nations.
• India is well positioned to lead the initiative, especially in South Asia, to provide the policy lexicon for engendering development initiatives, be that in regional trade, development assistance, safety nets and cross-border collaborations in health, education, and welfare.

Goal 5 of the United Nations sustainable development goals talks about Gender equality. The focus should be on the targets of Goal 5. India’s women have excelled in myriad fields of endeavour. They deserve more expansive vistas of agency and choice.