Social Development and Women: Legibilityin Statistics

RatnaAnjan JenaStatistical Adviser

Ministry of Women and Child development

Abstract: Social development has an implication of universal welfare, resulting from collective efforts of improving social conditions down to each woman, man and child. However development in our country could not become gender responsive. Development of women as a social category is an urgent necessity of the country, as they do not have an enabling and supporting environment in access to health, education, participation in decision making, work economy, etc.. Development in regard to women have been imbalanced, asymmetric and to a great degree adverse against them. In India, cultural attitudes and social norms pose several challenges which get exhibited through cases of violence against women as well as other indices including very low rate of female labour force participation. This is despite the fact that most women in India work and contribute to the economy in one form or another, and much of their work is not accounted for in official statistics. The Ministry of Women and Child Development is the nodal Ministry for advancement of women and children, largely guided by the objectives to empower them to live with confidence, dignity, and, economic and educational abilities and to nurture children. The Ministry implements certain innovative programmes for women and children covering welfare and support services, training for employment and income generation, awareness generation and gender sensitization. The Ministry has been grappling with efforts to develop suitable statistical tools and standards to make it possible to make contribution of women legible. Women are mostly involved in unremunerated and unpaid work which does not get accounted for in national economy. Valuation of unpaid work has an important gender dimension, as it indicates that women, predominantly engaged in such work, have a claim on the national resources to improve their conditions and their productivity.Estimating the contribution of women in purely market terms to the economy in different segments of activity and as a whole would be the most challenging task ahead.

1. Introduction

The term ‘social development’ has two different connotations to it. The word ‘social’ signifies human interactions in the network of socioeconomic institutions with their cultural values and norms, and the word‘development’entails dynamic processes of change, growth, progress or evolution. Therefore, social development has an implication of universal welfare, resulting from collective efforts of improving social conditions down to each woman, man and child. In other words, development being basically a generic concept ramifies into several concrete sites where women both individually and as a group are entitled to rights of participation as equal to any other. It has been our experience that these concrete socio-economic spaces of democratic polity and modernity have more often failed to make development process gender sensitive and/gender responsive. Also, it has not conduced an enabling environment for women as equal partners of development in access to health, education, participation in decision making and work economy, etc. The question that we may ask ourselves is: what is it that makes development in regard to women imbalanced, asymmetric and to a great degree adverse against them. So our hypothesis here is that there has been existing in the past and also does exist at present a visible-invisible structure in the functioning of development process by which their independent voices of articulation and concerns have been both admitted and mutilated. Even though they are active

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and forceful participants in the development process, they are not properly accounted for in it. The reasons for this are not far to seek. The symptoms that testify to their not being accounted for in development process are manifest in violence and discrimination against them. Our attempt at making visible-invisible structure legible needs a nuanced analysis and this analysis must begin with understanding of how this mechanism works and to read the symptoms in violence, discrimination and denial of their rights.

1.1. Women constitute an important segment of society and their empowerment is an urgent necessity for the country. In fact, it is ‘the indicator’ for assessing development. The concept of Women in Development (WID) that emerged in seventies, considered women’s issues in development projects for improving their status. Women and Development (WAD), suggested that women have always been an integral part of development and it was only made possible by the involvement of women. Gender and Development (GAD) focus is on the entrenched biases of differences between men and women and the need to challenge existing gender roles and relations that have systematically subordinated women. GAD focus is primarily on gender division of labor and gender as a relation of power embedded in social institutions.

2.0. Women Empowerment - Indian Scenario

2.1. In seventies, in India, majority of women were excluded from formal jobs so much so that 94% of the female workforce was engaged in the unorganized sector in agriculture, agro-forestry, fishery, handicrafts and so on. In addition to this, the violence on women had its manifestations in the most universally prevalent forms of domestic and sexual violence and in dowry, honour killings, trafficking, child sexual abuse, child marriage, etc. The Government of India (GOI) has taken several affirmative action to empower women and bring in gender equality in the development process of the country. The Ministry of Women and Child Development is the nodal Ministry for advancement of women and children. The Vision of the Ministry of women and child Development are empowered women living with dignity and contributing as equal partners in development in an environment free from violence and discrimination, and, well-nurtured children with full opportunities for growth and development in a safe and protective environment.

2.2. The Ministry wants to promote social and economic empowerment of women through cross-cutting policies and programmes, mainstream gender concerns, create awareness about their rights and facilitate institutional and legislative support for enabling them to realise their human rights and develop to their full potential. The main objectives of the Ministry are:i) Laying the foundation for development of children below 6 years with a focus on Supplementary Nutrition and pre-school, non-formal education and to enhance the awareness and capability of mothers for nutritional and health needs of the child;

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ii) Empowering adolescent girls (11-18 years) through nutrition, health care and life skills education; iii) Providing a safe and secure environment for overall development of children who are in need of care and protection and children in conflict with law; iv) Promoting the rights based approach in the foundation of policy for children; v) Promoting an environment free from violence and discrimination against women as well as socio-economic empowerment of marginalized women; vi) Mainstreaming gender concerns in the policies and programmes of different Ministries/Departments of Government of India & State Governments through gender budgeting.

2.3. The Ministry formulates plans, policies and programmes, enacts and amends legislations and aims at coordinating both governmental and non-governmental organizations for supplementing the efforts that women make for their development. It implements certain innovative programmes for women and childrencovering welfare and support services, training for employment and income generation, awareness generation and gender sensitization.These programmes play a supplementary and complementary role to the other general developmental programmes in the sectors of health, education, rural development etc. All these efforts are directed to ensure that women are empowered both economically and socially and thus become equal partners in national development along with men. The focus of all the initiatives of the government is to recognise women’s centrality in the developmental schemes/programmescutting across all sectors, and mainstreaming gender perspectives in legislations, policies and programmes.

2.2. At the policy level, National Policy for Women 2001 provides a framework for policy actions by laying down specific objectives to foster advancement, development and empowerment of women. The Ministry of WCD has enacted progressive legislations and introduced programmes and scheme interventions that reinforce commitments of the government to strengthen the resolve and facilitate progress towards the goals of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

2.3. The women related acts that been enacted to protect women from discrimination and violence are, i)The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013; ii)Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005; iii) National Commission for Women Act, 1990; iv)The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987; v) The Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986; vi)The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1986; vii) The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1986; viii) The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA) 2006 . These Acts have the provisions of protecting women against violence and sexual abuse in any form and protect childrenfrom early marriages.

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2.4 To achieve the main objectives and mission, this Ministry is implementing various schemes on ground level. Some of the major programmes initiatives that the ministry has taken related to women and children are as follows.

2.4.1 Women related majorprogrammes/schemes are:

i) BetiBachao, BetiPadhao (BBBP) to celebrate the girl child and enable her education.ii) Sabla-Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls, aims to improve health status, iii) Indira Gandhi MatritvaSahyogYojana (IGMSY) to fulfill individual specific conditions; iv) National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW), to address issues related to empowerment of women.v) One Stop Centre Scheme in each State to provide support and assistance to women affected by violence, vi) Universalisation Women Helpline(181) Scheme to provide 24 hours emergency and non-emergency responses to women affected by violence vii) Expansion of Women’s Hostels, SwadharGrehs and Ujjawala; Working Women Hostels to provide safe and affordable hostel accommodation for working women, prevent trafficking andproviding quality services to the beneficiaries;viii) RashtriyaMahilaKoshto to empower poor women through micro financing and credit, and, ix) STEP (Support to Training & Employment Programme for Women)Schemeto improve employability of women..

2.4.2 Children related major Programmes/schemes:

i) The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS): To develop children below 6 years with a focus on supplementary nutrition and pre-school, non-formal education; and to enhance the awareness and capability of mothers for nutritional and health needs of the child.ThisProgramme is India’s primary response to the nutritional and developmental needs of the children below six years, pregnant women and nursing mothers.

ii) The Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS): to build a protective environment for children in difficult circumstances, with the objectives of protecting them and preventing harm. Also to provide a safe and secure environment for overall development of children who are in need of care and protection and children in conflict with law.

3.0 Women and child related indicators:3.1 In India every women-oriented scheme or programme of the Ministry of Women and Child Development for instance has a set of pre-defined indicators to measure at the outcome level. However, this Ministry has to depend on other Ministries, Departments and organisations to have credible and reliable data on the conditions of women. The ministry as such does not generate any data or statistics. For example the indicators from census data of sex ratio at birth, child sex ratio, and female literacy rate determine gender criticality. Statistics of women economic

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empowerment such as female work force participation rate, employment rate, female contribution in informal economy, institutional access to credit, ownership of land, time spent in paid /unpaid work etc. come from periodical NSSO surveys. Similarly, to know the safety and security of women, the Ministry has to depend on the crucial indicators compiled under the sub-categories of violence against women in the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data. Gender sensitive education indicators such as gross enrolment ratio, percentage of female teachers, adult literacy rate, toilets in school etc. are provided by Ministry of Human resource development. Health indicators from Ministry of Health and Family welfare includes maternal mortality rate, proportion of women under prevalence of anemia, number of institutional deliveries, contraceptive prevalence and use , HIV prevalence, etc. and so many others. There are other important gender sensitive governance indicators like proportion of woman parliamentarians, decision making positions in local government/parliament or in local civil bodies etc. which can be provided by Ministry of Home affairs. The States/ UTs also analyse data at their level and provide feed backs whenever required.

4.0. Scheme wise existing data, data sources and data gaps:

The indicators related to different schemes of MWCD can be put in the following heads:4.1Related to mother and child:Major Schemes: ICDS and ICPS: Indicators: Nutrition, health, pre-school non-formal education, Immunization, vulnerable children and children in conflict with law.

4.1.2.Data availability:SRS(Sample Registration System) provides Data on under five MR,TFR, MMR etc.NFHS provides estimates for underweight children, stunted children, and institutional deliveries and other women and child related indicators. Ministry of home affairs and state Administration provides data on missing children and children in conflict with law.

4.1.3. Data gaps:NFHS based indicators have long periodicity, SRS results are mainly for larger states and not below state level. MMR estimates are available after a period of three years. Administrative records of MHA and Sates are always underestimated due to non-reporting and various other reasons. Administrative records do not generally get updated. Though Monthly Data collected by AnganwadiWorkers(AWW) and put into different registers are supposed to give various data as mentioned above , but authenticity of data can be challenged. Ministry of Home affairs and State Administrations data related to child under conflict with law is not periodic, under estimated and do not capture the information

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4.2. Related to women:Major Schemes: IGMSY, BBBP, SABLA, STEP: Indicators: Child Sex Ratio(CSR), Sex Ratio at Birth(SRB), empowering adolescent girls (11-18 years) through nutrition, health care and life skills, education, training and capacity building

4.2.1.Data availability:U-DISE, Population Census (Decadal) provides information on attainment of education and School related indicators. NSSO through its survey also provides after a gap of quite a number of years information on certain indicators of skill development, education, health etc. NFHS provides nutrition data. However the issue of concern is lack of Standardisation.

4.2.2.Data gaps:Indicators like Mean Years of Schooling And Expected Years of Schooling are not readily available. Regular data on SRB is required for proper monitoring and policy making, which can be made available from the demographic profiles captured in large scale household consumer survey by NSS.Coverage of the sheme of the Ministry is limited, therefore data captured through monitoring of these schemes may not be reliable for policy making.

4.3.Schemes related to Distressed woman and implementation of different lawsScheme: One Stop Centre, Women Helpline, UJJWALA, Short Stay Home for Women and Girls. All these schemes can be put into in one head that is Human Rights Violation against Women and the data related to violence against women, trafficking, abandoned women and their protection

4.3.1. Data availability:

National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), of Ministry of Home Affairs is the Nodal Agencyfor providing data on the above related issues. ‘ Crime in India’ brought out by NCRB provides data on (i) cases registered and their disposal and (ii) persons arrested and their disposal under major heads of Indian Penal Codes and Special and Local Laws. (Age-group-wise and sex-wise details). The status of crime against some vulnerable sections of the society - women, children, Scheduled Castes / Scheduled Tribes is also available.

4.3.2.Data gaps and other related issues:

There is large extent of non-reporting/ recording of crime and they are not reliable as there are systemic biases, errors due to overlaps between different sections of IPC, outreach to vulnerable (women, children). There is no structured procedure for identification of new types of crime/ offences for collection of statistics thereon. No statistics are available for the entire gamut of non-cognizable offences which are very important for knowing the crime situation in the society in its entirety and having desired interventions in place. Difficult to measure Crimes related to cross border trafficking.

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5.Statistics and legibility(through indicators)

5.1 Statistics has always been a tool of the State to invent and reinvent society by associating itself with democracy and equality. Unlike other approaches,the approach of statistics has been to transform human beings into subjects equal to each other and measured with a common denominator/s. This apparent equality that characterizes democracy has simultaneously made it possible the measurement of deviations from the ‘average’ and ‘democratic mean’. When we say, on certain quantifiable parameters,that the situation of women is far from the average and expected democratic mean, it establishes the measure of inequality.Statistics is therefore a technology of governmentality by which the ideal aspirations of theState are upheld before it and is used by the State for implementation of schemes, policies,programmes for the development of population resource not only materially in health, infrastructure facilities, education, but also spiritually in providing conditions of equality and freedom and of political participation in nation building.Apart from its modernizing role in separating individuals from their marked traditional loyalties such as family, kinship,caste,etc, statistics functions as a tool of legibility. For example, censuses, as Benedict Anderson says, are part of statistical procedures by which people imagine themselves as a distinct nation. Statistics transform population into a legible one by throwing up an array of numbers which has nothing to do with any traditional communities. Therefore, we can say that Statistics has broadly three objectives: one, towards modernity; second, towards governmentality, and third, towards legibility.

5.2 To make the conditions of women legible, we have to make efforts to develop suitable statistical tools and standards to make it possible to makecontribution of women legible, be it in the unremunerated domestic sectors,vulnerability to poverty, discrimination against them etc. For example, labour force statistics, national income statistics, statistics of prices and finance, etc. cover only that part of the society which is connected with economic activities. Since the market is viewed as the core of economic activities, participation of labour force as well as production of goods and services included in conventional statistics refers only those goods and services which are exchanged in the market. Unremunerated work not entering the market does not counted in official statistics to a great degree.

Work participation rate by gender, rural- urban divide in India (%)

Years Rural Urban All

  Male Female Male Female Male Female

2011-12 54.3 24.8 54.6 14.7 54.4 21.9

2009-10 54.7 26.1 54.3 13.8 54.6 22.8

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2004-05 54.6 32.7 54.9 16.6 54.7 28.7

Source: NSSO, 61st (2004-05) 66th (2009-10) & 68th (2011-12) round

Valuation of unpaid work has an important gender dimension, as it indicates that women, predominantly engaged in such work, have a claim on the national resources to improve their conditions and their productivity.

6.0. Endeavours to fillData Gaps

6.1. Government needs to know how its legislations/ programmes/ schemes are getting implemented on ground level. In the absence of baseline data, the schemes and programmes are run hypothetically with a preconceived stratified approach of society. Hence these schemes need rigorous, concurrent monitoring at every level so that mid-course corrective actions could be taken. Though government makes efforts, through different Ministries and organizations to collect data on wide range of indicators but it isvery difficult to determine the extent of vulnerability on each dimension, if information is not captured at the household level. On the one hand, some indicators pertaining to status of women are easy to capture through statistics such as mother’s nutritional levels, maternal mortality rates, sex ratios, literacy rates, participation in economic and political decision making, etc., however it is difficult to measure the work that women does which never gets recognised, monetized or enumerated. Therefore data wherever it exists, is either has inaccuracies raising questions on its reliability or it gives an incomplete picture of the situation of women.6.2. The Ministry of WCD is endeavoringwith National Informatic Centre (NIC) to develop a common web based portal relating to “Prevention of Crimes Against women” and working on developing a mechanism to use the scheme wise captured data for making informed policy decisions.

7.0. Effective Information:

7.1. Reliable Information

The process of decision-making and policy formulationfor the empowerment of women and protection of child must have reliable information regarding the core outcomes arising from the implementation of various schemes.Effective monitoring on all related aspects of the issues of women and children – governance and regulation, service delivery, human resources, financing etc.–are required for using results to improve performance and service delivery. Such capabilities to measure and monitor the development issues of women and children– involving

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inputs and processes; outputs, outcomes and impact are central to accountability and enable decision makers to track progress, performance and evaluate impact of their policies.

7.2. Gender equality;

The gender equality is a major priority in development interventions due to the direct impact gender-sensitive policies have on economic development, higher education achievement, and better quality of life in a country. The need to measure the progress of Govt. interventions and maintain gender equality is increasing. Women’s empowerment forms a basis to foster growth, reduce poverty, and promote better governance.We recognize that women’s empowermentis a vast field with a myriad of indicators in different dimensions.However, along with the established statistical indicators, we can develop other dimensions for measuring women empowerment. These could mainly be categorized as economic contribution, education, government, health, and media.

7.3. Economic contribution:

Women’s empowermentdescribed through the dimension of economic contribution has the indicators like Market participation, explaining women’s influence on global and local markets, gender equality to remuneration, and limitations on market involvement. Indicators in the marketparticipation can include incomedistribution, which demonstrates women’s financial and economic power;workforce composition, which includes labor and entrepreneurial opportunitiesfor women; and productivity contribution, which describes women’s productionlevel in formal and informal markets.The data for this indicator can be measured through Macrolevel indicators e.g., aggregate consumption, savings, and investments which can also quantify widespread gender-based differences, and disparities between urban and rural populations.

7.4: Education:

Indicators of education are among the most important measures of women’s status and gender equity. Education equips girls and women with knowledge to make informed decisions about their everyday lives. A mother’s education influences her children more than the father’s in terms of securing resources .With higher levels of education, women tend to have lower fertility rates, improved nutrition, and increased use of health services for themselves and their children. Additionally, education serves as a predictor of better employment opportunities because educated women participate more in the labor force and earn higher incomes. We have established indicators like the number of students andteachers, percentages, rates, ratios, absolutegender gap, and gender parity index which, however fail to capture the absolute level of achievement. However, we can also develop some gender-sensitive education indicators like levels of access to education (sex wise) and the school infrastructure facilities friendly to girls, percentage of female teachers, quantification of progress and quality education to girl children, etc.All these indicators along with the established ones can really reflect the status of women empowerment in our country.

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7.5: Governance:

Although women’s empowerment improved with the implementation of gendersensitivepolicies, the governance still staggers behind other dimensions. Withincreasing awareness of the political importance of gender-sensitive economicdevelopment and policy reform, decision makers are starting to give considerableattention to the role women play in politics.Overall, women’s participation in the decision-making process is critical whenassessing women’s empowerment, gender equality, and other developmental goals. The concept of women’s empowerment is embedded in protection of women’srights, which has political and legal implications. The indicator depicting the percentage of women in government Positions, corporate sector, urban and local bodies, the seats held by women in parliament, trackwomen’s participation and political empowerment over time. However, we should develop indicator quantifying confidence levels of people in policies/legislations formed with the involvement of women.

7.6. Health:

Health is a determinant of a population’s well-being, labor market participation,worker productivity, savings, and fertility. As a key component for strong humancapital, research shows that health directly influences economic growth anddevelopment.Women’s health affects both individual household and national economic welfaredue to gender roles. A woman’s ability to lead a healthy and productive life iscrucial for a country’s well-being. In general, women tend to live longer than men and have lower mortalityrates than men at any age, but this trend does not imply that women are healthieror better able to access health-care resources. Mortality rates reveal extreme damages to health and do not take into account other, large health differencesbetween men and women. Additionally, women often take care of children and prepare meals. To fulfill these important duties and ensure well-being of their families, women must be physically well and knowledgeable about health. Broader changes can occur in the country if we improve women’s abilities tomake decisions regarding childbearing, childrearing, sexual relations, and use ofcontraceptives. Along with the established indicators, we could also develop indicators like Causes of death among women revealing major health problems, treatment for diseases as it varies between men and women, access to money and insurance, and knowledge ofhealth systems.

7.7. Media:

The media are a channel to examine the right to freedom of opinion and expression. This right and the ability to exercise it should not be contingent on gender. For empowerment efforts to be successful, women must be able to exercise their rights in the same manner and to the same extent as their male counterparts. Yet, being able to exercise a universally declared human right is insufficient for empowerment. Allowing women access to communication systems, such as media, does not guarantee that their opinions will be expressed equally or that their participation in the media will be mainstreamed: stereotyping and alienation of women by the media are still remarkably widespread phenomena. The main categories in the media dimension are equal expression offreedom of speech, equal coverage in news reporting, and equal treatment of media employees.We have to develop suitable indicators in this unexplored area.

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8.0. Way ahead:

8.1. Despite all the concerted efforts, indices depicting the status of women show that more needs to be done. The technical support from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) and convergence with relevant line Ministries in collating gender disaggregated data would go a long way in improving the efficiency and effectiveness for reporting and improving accuracy of data.This would finally enable us in making social development legible or visible with key focus on matters related to women.If we consider women in the work economy, we have to acknowledge the fact that, there are a number of unaccounted for factors cost that affect the earnings of a female worker and reduce the wages actually paid. The reproductive role of women is so much hidden away and foreclosed from the public space that it is not recognized. This hidden dimension of womens’ work has been given a theoretical recognition with a pilot study of Time Utilisation by Men and Women. This study classified the activities based on the 1993 system of National Accounts (SNA) into three categories: i) those coming under economic activities already included in SNA,ii) those that are not currently included in the SNA but are characterized as extended SNA. These include household maintenance and care for children, old and the sick in the household, iii) non SNA consisting of social cultural activities, leisureand personal care. The afore-said pilot study marshaled the fact that a relatively major share of time is spent by women on domestic chores and care for the sick, old and children.The progreressivedomesticisation of work is more pronounced among women than among men

TableWeekly average time (hours) spent on SNA,Extended SNA and Non SNA activities by

gender and place of work ( combined for six states)Activities Rural Urban Total

Male Female Male Female Male FemaleSNA 42.3 22.5 41.1 9.2 42.0 18.7Extended SNA

3.7 33.9 3.4 36.4 3.6 34.6

Non SNA 122.0 111.5 123.5 122.4 122.4 114.5Total 168.0 168.0 168.0 168.0 168.0 168.0Total Persons

22285 21130 10305 9549 32590 30679

Note: Time Use Survey was conducted in 18,591 households spread over six selected states namely, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Gujrat, Orissa, TamilNadu and Meghalaya.Source: CSO 2000

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8.2. Here, the repot of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector under the chairmanship of Late ArjunSengupta may be referred, wherein the commission has tried to quantify unorganized or informal workers not having any employment security, work security and social security. Two tables may be seen here compiled from the NCEUS report. It has been well established by the statistics compiled in that report that while women workers constitute a marginalized category among the class of workers in general there are layers of subordination manifest in conditions of their social status and in economic sector to which they belong. Add to this, there are differentiation within women in general and women workers in particular.

9.0. Conclusion:Therefore, estimating the contribution of women in purely market terms to the economy in different segments of activity and as a whole would be the most challenging task ahead. Without this, it is difficult to grasp the abyssal conditions to which they are thrown and the potential that they have to not only to ameliorate their condition but the condition of all human beings. Till such time, disparate statistical profiling of their conditions in the outcomes of schemes and programmes or in demographic vital statistics would be of limited help and not cover the entire field. The way forward is , I again repeat, is to marketwise their contribution in order to return to them their subject-hood of development and not as its passive object. Statistics would play a crucial role by providing quantifying tools and standards that would reveal the process of social development hand in hand with the development of women in all aspects of life. Our beginningis to begin with the work concretised in the NCEUS report.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions reflected in the paper is that of the author only and not of the organization.

Bibliography:1. Website of Ministry of Women and Child Development, www2. NCEUS Report3. NSSO Surveys4. CSO Reports

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