E-Paper
'Barring women in governance, India still unfair'
The gender gap is narrowing, but not fast enough, says a report on gender equity released by Secretary Hillary Clinton and Melinda Gates in New York on Tuesday.
The gender gap is narrowing, but not fast enough, says a report on gender equity released by Secretary Hillary Clinton and Melinda Gates in New York on Tuesday.
In fact, in India, the report called No Ceilings shows that the overall percentage of women at workplace has dipped. The report further paints an abysmal picture of the way India treats its daughters.
The only area where India meets the world average is women in governance. With 9.3% ministers women, India has the highest percentage of women ministerial appointments among South Asian countries. China ranks close second at 8.3%. Globally, women occupy 22% of seats in national legislatures, up from 12% in 1997.
From 1990 to 2012 in India, women’s work force participation fell from 36.5% to 28.5%.
This when the share of women CEOs in Fortune 500 companies has increased globally from 0% in 1995 to 5% now.
Pakistan emerged as the best performing country in all of South Asia with 83% female labourforce participation in 2012.
The gender bias doesn’t end here for Indian women. The fairer sex does seven times more unpaid work than men.
India is also home to one in three of the world’s child brides, with more than 25 million girls getting married before age of 18 in 2012.
The country also has the highest absolute number of teen births with 12 million women aged between 20 and 24 giving birth before the age of 18. In 2013, India was one of the 10 countries that accounted for 60% of global maternal deaths.
According to the World Bank, the number of girls “missing” at birth because of sex-selective foeticide increased by more than 2,00,000 between 1990 and 2008, now totalling approximately 1.4 million, with China accounting for 77% and India 18%.
