Gender, Growth and Governance: Cross-Cutting Issues

Abstract

There is overwhelming evidence that higher growth rate engenders greater reduction in poverty. However, one of India’s dilemmas is extracting growth from all its able agents, including women. Thus, an all-inclusive and sustainable growth means all having equal access, opportunity, and capability to participate in and benefit from the growth process with the readiness to face competition. In India, with the legacy of conservatism on the one hand and the scope of globalization and challenges of MDGs, we need to reposition the issues of feminism.

The labor market is already constrained by educational disparities and skill shortages. For women, the problem gets compounded by issues of preventable violence, harassment, and pressures both at home and at workplaces. Apart from general deprivation, lack of resource ownership, and lack of decision-making power; the trends in modern enabling mechanisms such as the ICT are also areas of concern for gender equity and growth.

Goals of growth and equity, therefore, need to be linked to the broader objective of good governance; be it in the private sector or the public sector, the agricultural sector or the non-agricultural sector, the rural sector or the urban sector. Our reforms need to be gender-sensitive, pro-nature, and pro-democratic. Only then the livelihood security of the people will be recognized and realized.

With this background, the paper examines concepts and reviews issues pertaining to growth, equity, and productivity of women as the presently most deprived and vulnerable part of the total population. It discusses certain cross-cutting strategies affecting not only the empowering beneficiaries, but also the intervening agencies. We admit that the catch-up call and promotion in women’s status is highly challenging, if not equally controversial. But based on our analysis of the trends in growth in general; and inclusive growth in particular; we feel the need for a coherent and collective effort for women's active role in the economy, in politics, and in society.

Keywords: gender, governance, India, panchayats, political

JEL Classification: D72, H70, J16