Budgets and the gender perspective

By S. Swaminathan

``Nothing, arguably, is as important today in the political economy of development as an adequate recognition of political economic and social participation and leadership of women.'' Thus wrote Professor Amartya Sen concluding his exposition on ``Women's Agency and Social Change'' in the 1999 classic ``Development as Freedom''. While a large part of the world continues to look at women's issues in terms of paternalism and well-being, the concept of women's empowerment in the social, political and economic order in terms of the pre-requisites of human development is hardly given the priority that it deserves.

As Prof. Sen explains it, the concentration on ``women's well- being,'' which is perhaps a progressive turning away from the encrusted social and cultural tradition of subordination of women to an inferior status, is not the same thing as the recognition of women as the change-agents in society. That development policy itself would be flawed unless it is anchored in the ``agency'' role of women not only needs to be underscored but what is strategic even if it is complex is the pragmatic translation of such a policy into programmes in different areas of the social process.

The development experience of many western countries establishes the causal relationship between women empowerment (through education, property entitlement and the dismantling of gender discrimination in employment and in the holding of public and political offices and those in the professions and particularly in the judiciary) and economic growth in its totality encompassing capital formation, human resource development, technology advancement and professional managerial competencies.

It is also known that developing countries that sought to replicate the western pattern of development through deliberate governmental policies intended to reverse the traditional deprivation of women and the female child in such areas as nutrition, education, health and employment, have succeeded in their developmental tasks unlike other countries still mired in poverty and gross gender discrimination. The East Asian ``economic miracle'' with all its aberrations and setbacks drives home this lesson.

Addressing gender inequality

The World Development Report (WDR) 2000-01 lists all the debilities of societies that continue to be afflicted with massive poverty which has much to do with gender inequality as a historical legacy. Not only are the predominant cultural attitudes in these societies obstacles to the emergence of women as active agents or instrumentalities of progress, but the economic process is such that women, and more so poor women, are often outside the system of distribution of public goods and services. Women's lack of access to resources, to the system of decision-making and to the overall domain of public life is a grim reality that will not dissolve merely because the rate of growth of the economy is pushed up through liberalisation. The persisting gender inequality threatens such societies with the continuing spectre of high infant mortality, maternal mortality, nutritional deficiency and the resultant adverse impact on cognitive development of the child and so forth. Unless these societies put gender justice in the forefront of their national agenda, the chances of their graduation into the higher stages of development can only be precarious.

The Indian record

While a certain degree of optimism seems justified in terms of how India has grappled with the age-old incubus of gender injustice, through legal reforms, the spreading of the reach of education and the expansion of the system of public health, it cannot be said that even in a progressive State such as Kerala, the development paradigm has distinctly recognised women as the agents of social and economic transformation. Progress there has been but not empowerment of women, notwithstanding the Constitutional amendments providing for one-third reservation for women in elected positions in village panchayats and nagarapalikas.

According to data published in the Human Development Report (HDR) 2000, female adult literacy in India is only 65 per cent of the male adult literacy rate which itself is perhaps hovering around 55 per cent. School enrolment for female children, which was 71 per cent at the primary stage (in 1997), was distinctly lower at the secondary stage at 48 per cent. At the tertiary level, hardly five out of 1,000 females made it to the university. Female ``work participation'' has no doubt grown according to Indian official data from 19.7 per cent in 1981 to 22.3 per cent in 1991. But according to the HDR, ``female economic activity rate'' in India in 1998 was only 41.8 per cent, not even half that of the male population. This figure excludes the massive phenomenon of female child labour (below the age 15).

It is well-known that the official statistical system is not too sensitive to the gender-related inequities in the social and economic system so much so that policymaking for the explicit purpose of reversing gender discrimination is clearly hamstrung.

The Budget - can it address the gender divide?

A plea was recently made to the Union Finance Minister by some women activists for explicitly recognising the ``gender dimension'' in the developmental agenda. Perhaps a beginning will be made this year with the Economic Survey (of the Ministry of Finance) setting out broadly the status of women in the economy if not in the society as a whole even if such a new chapter will be dominated by subjective, qualitative broad-brush generalisations with slender statistical reinforcements. Whether adding a gender perspective to the Economic Survey will be a breakthrough in terms of developmental perspectives can be debated. But if it serves to bring out the total inadequacy of budgetary allocations that are directly or remotely related to the cause of women empowerment, it could prove a useful beginning.

After all with five decades of developmental experience, the political establishment is yet to realise that some sprinkling of budgetary resources for the Department of Family Welfare under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare or for elementary education, for Mahila Samakhya (education for women's equality) or the National Programme for Women Education (for ensuring greater participation of women in the educational field) or for the Department of Women and Child Development under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, is not even a faint approximation to an integrated vision of gender justice as the major driving force of the development agenda. How long will this country wait for this vision to inform the entire gamut of national action?

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