Women Empowerment in India Remains Elusive: CSO Women and Men in India 2014 Report
Women Empowerment in India Remains Elusive: CSO Women and Men in India 2014 Report
Women empowerment is far off for India as of now. A government report released by the Central Statistical Organisation shows that women are still way behind men when it comes to decision making and participation in economic activities. CSO’s publication entitled “Women and Men in India 2014” indicated that women occupied just 7 of out 45 ministerial berths in the current CoM(Council of Ministers). Though this an improvement of 5% from 10% in 2004 to 15% in current times, much more needs to be accomplished in terms of political representation for women.In the general elections this year, only 62 women were elected and this makes the share of female leaders in the 16th Lok Sabha a mere 11%.
Political Participation
While female participation in the elections rose from 56% in the 15th LS to 66% in the current LS, male participation rose to 67% during the same period of time. Of the 62 lady parliamentarians, 20 were in the age group 41 to 50. As regards educational qualifications and professional credentials, 34% of the lady MPs are social and political workers while 44% were postgraduates. As against this, 31% (the maximum) of male members were agriculturalists while 42% were graduates and 29% were postgraduates.
In the state government, political participation of women is even lesser. Women have an 8% share in legislative assemblies and 4% share in legislative councils as on August 2014. As far as Panchayati Raj Institutions are concerned, about 46.7% of the women are present with maximum number (58.6%) in Jharkhand and minimum of 32.3% in Goa in March 2013. Provision of 50% reservation for women here may have created a positive effect at the local level, reports TOI.
Representation in the Judiciary
In the higher judiciary, there were only 2 lady judges in a group of 30 in the apex court. In the different high courts, there were only 58 female judges out of a total of 609 and maximum number (25%) was in the Delhi HC. There were no women judge in 6 HCs as on April 2014. In the Allahabad HC, 5 judged out of 88 were women as against 2 out of 32 in Andhra Pradesh and 1 out of 29 in Kerala HC.
Administrative Services
Women representation and participation in the administrative services also remained sub par. 14% women officers were in the Indian Administrative Services as against 19% in the Indian Foreign Services and 12% in the Indian Trade Service in 2012. Data for IPS was not available and representation of women in the Indian Economic Service (30%) and the Indian Forest Service (28%) was slightly higher.
Economic Participation
The report also indicated that women are less than half of the economically active section of the population yet their contribution to economic activity is far lower. According to Census 2011, workforce participation rate for women was 25.51% as against 53.26% for men. Better female workforce participation was observed in rural areas at 30.02% as against 15.44% in urban areas. The report also quoted NSSO survey data which stated that worker population ratio for women in rural areas was 24.8% and it was 54.3% for the men in 2011-2012. In urban areas, the ratio was 14.7% for women and 54.6% for the men.
Unemployment rate for women in rural areas was 2.9% as against 2.1% for men. The urban Indian female is more susceptible to unemployment according to the report, which indicated that 6.6% of ladies in urban areas were unemployed in 2011-2012 as against 3.2% of the men. Female participation was also reported to be lower than make in labour force as ladies mostly engaged in unpaid work and women employed in paid work were mainly in the informal sector. Women also received lower wages than their male counterparts.
Health Indicators
Crude birth rate has reduced to 21.6% in 2012 while General Fertility rate was found to be 80.3% in the same year. Total fertility rate has also gone down to 2.2 in 2012. Age specific fertility was higher for women in the 20-24 age group as against 25-29 or 30-34.
Female infant mortality rate at 42 was higher than male IMR which was 39 and the overall IMR which was 40 in 2013. IMR has reduced considerably to 40 in 2013 indicating better health facilities for infants. The maternal mortality ratio fell to 178 in 2010-2012. It was highest in Assam and lowest in Tamil Nadu.
Conclusion
The report clearly indicates that women empowerment has a long way to go in India. The government has to make good on its promises and ensure that women’s right to economic participation and livelihood is respected. More representation of women in political, judicial and administrative circles is needed. Rural women as well as their urban counterparts need representation and participation in the formal workforce.
