7 Indicators and Status of Women Globally

Minnie Mathew

1. INTRODUCTION

This module is designed for Master‟s students of Women‟s Development and Empowerment. It will help learners understand the status of women from a broad spectrum of indicators and see how the status of Indian women compares with the rest of the world.

Ancient literature tells us that women enjoyed equal status with men. This situation gradually changed due to political, economic and cultural dynamics. Wars, invasions and revolutions happening in various parts of the world also strongly influenced the status of women. When we talk of “status”, we could be talking from different perspectives. By going through this module we will be on the same page.

It was only in the second half of the 20th century that definite parameters were evolved to understand the status of women within the overall development paradigm. In order to make global comparisons, the parameters were standardized which permit us to see the position of each country or a region in relation to the rest of the world.

In this module we will look at some selected parameters which are crucial to determine the status of women for example; health and nutritional status, educational status, political participation, economic status, empowerment and violence against women.

2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Understand the various global indices of women‟s Development.
Understand how India ranks globally with respect to gender equality.
India‟s progress as of 2015, on the Millennium Development Goals.

3. INDICATORS OF WOMEN’S DEVELOPMENT

An indicator is a parameter selected to indicate a specific outcome which represents progress. Periodic measurements of these indictors will reflect the changes achieved overtime. The indicators selected should be available, valid, reliable, precise and measureable. A single indicator can provide a simple piece of information. In order to capture a holistic picture, a set of related indicators are used to prepare an index which is a composite indicator. In this exercise, weightage is provided to each indicator depending on its influence on the larger picture, based on sound statistical approaches. While composite indicators have the capacity to summarize multi-dimensional issues, they do have certain limitations which we need to understand. Let us examine some of these composite indicators.

Gender Parity Index (GPI)

GPI is a socioeconomic index developed by UNESCO. It measures the relative access to education between males and females. It is calculated as the proportion of the number of females by the number of males enrolled at a given level of education.

The Education for All Development Index (EDI)

The EFA Development Index is a composite index which can assess the overall performance of a country in relation to gender specific EFA indicators. The index includes (i) primary adjusted net enrolment ratio (the number of pupils in the school age group for primary education, enrolled either in primary or secondary education, expressed as a percentage of the total population in that age group), (ii) literacy rate for persons who are > 15, (iii) gender specific EFA index (GEI) an average of the gender parity indices (GPIs) of the primary and secondary gross enrolment ratios and the adult literacy rate,(iv) survival rate to grade 5.

Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM)

According to UNDP, GEM can measure how women and men are able to participate in economic and political life and take part in decision making. GEM is based on three indicators, viz., (i) proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments, (ii) percentage of women in economic decision making positions i.e. women in administrative, management, professional and technical jobs, (iii) women‟s share of income in relation to men. While women‟s empowerment is women‟s participation in economic life in all sectors, GEM has the limitation of being unable to capture the entire spectrum of women‟s empowerment.

Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI)

WEAI was evolved by the US Government‟s Feed the Future Initiative, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) of Oxford University in 2012. This new index focuses on women who play a large role in agriculture particularly in developing countries, yet face a number of constraints. It includes indicators such as (i) decision on agricultural activities, (ii) agricultural income, (iii) control over land and livestock, (iv) leadership in the community and (v) time use. Women will be considered to be empowered if they have achieved four of the five areas. It also looks at empowerment of women in relation to men. This is being piloted in three countries and preliminary results show that the index is very effective in measuring women‟s empowerment in agriculture.

Gender Inequality Index (GII)

Developed by UNDP, this measure uses three dimensions, viz., (i) reproductive health: Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) (ratio of the number of maternal deaths while pregnant, or within 42 days of pregnancy completion per 100,000 live births during the same period, and adolescent Fertility Rate (AFR) (number of births per 1000 adolescent girls in the age group of (15-19) (ii) empowerment: women‟s share of parliamentary seats and higher education and (iii) women‟s participation in the labour market.

Gender Equity Index (GEI)

GEI has been developed by Social Watch in 2004 focusing on socio economic opportunities. It ranks 157 countries by measuring three dimensions of gender inequity such as education, economic participation and empowerment. The limitation of this index is that it only looks at socioeconomic aspects and ignores important aspects such health.

Global Gender Gap Index (GGP)

The World Economic Forum since 2006 has been able to quantify the extent of gender based disparities between men and women. The index uses outcome indicators such as

(i) health and survival (sex ratio at birth and the ratio of female life expectancy over male,

(ii) educational achievement ( ratio of female literacy rate to male literacy rate, ratio of female net primary enrolment over male, ratio of female net secondary enrolment rate over male, ratio of female gross tertiary enrolment over male),

(iii) economic dimension: ratio of female labour participation in relation to men, ratio of estimated female income over male income, ratio of female legislators over men, ratio of female professional and technical workers over men and

(iv) political dimension: ratio of females with seats in the parliament in relation to men, ratio of females at ministerial level over male and the ratio of the number of years of female head of state in the last 50 years over male.

Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI)

The OECD (organization for economic cooperation and Development) in 2007 introduced an index called the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI). This index focuses on social institutions that have an impact on the equality of women and men. They include (i) the four dimensions of discriminatory family code (whether women and men have the same legal minimum age of marriage),whether women and men have the same authority to be the legal guardian of a child during marriage, custody rights over a child after divorce, whether widows and widowers have the same rights of inheritance, whether daughters and sons have equal inheritance rights, (ii) restricted physical integrity, (whether the legal framework provides protection for women against domestic violence, rape and sexual harassment, the percentage of women who agree that a husband or a partner is justified in beating the wife/partner in certain circumstances, percentage of women who have experienced physical or sexual violence from their intimate partner, percentage of women who have undergone genital mutilation, percentage of married women in the age group 15-49 who have unmet need for family planning), (iii) son bias captured through the missing women (sex ratios in the age groups 0-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-64, >65, and fertility preferences (iv) restricted ownership of assets and resources (whether women and men have equal access to land and non-land assets, and control and ownership of land and other assets, and access to financial institutions and (v) restricted civil liberties (whether women have restrictions to move about freely in public places, whether women have quotas to promote their political participation at various levels and share of women in national parliaments). This index provides strong evidence of gender discrimination and is calculated for 160 countries.

Gender Related Development Index (GDI)

GDI is a Human Development Index used to measure gender equality. GDI is corrected by the existing gender inequalities. It looks at gender gaps in education, school enrolment, adult literacy, life expectancy, and income. GDI and GEM were introduced in 1995 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Human Development Report. This has added the gender sensitive dimension to the Human Development Index. It also creates a penalty score for gender gaps. The GDI cannot be seen in isolation from the Human Development Index (HDI). One has to look at the gap between HDI and GDI.

Human Development Index (HDI)

HDI created by Indian economist Amartya Sen and Pakistani economist, Mahbub Ul Haq, and the UNDP in 1990. HDI is calculated on three aspects, including life expectancy, education and income using single indicators for each aspect. This simplicity permits HDI ranking for all the countries into different levels of human development. Although globally applicable, the insufficient indicators used for HDI is likely to be subject to prejudice.

Global Hunger Index (GHI)

GHI has been calculated by the international Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) since 2006. This is a multidimensional index and includes three indictors with equal weightage,

(i) proportion of undernourished in proportion to the total population (ii) underweight children under the age of 5 and

(iii) under five mortality. Countries with zero score have no hunger and those with a score of 100 are the worst affected by hunger. The correlation between Global Hunger Index (GHI) and Gender Gap Index (GGP) showed that high rates of hunger are strongly linked to gender inequalities especially with regard education and health.

Deciding which index to use

You have learnt that there are several indices that can be used to measure the status of women. They measure different aspects of women‟s development. You would have noticed that some indicators such as education and health are used to construct several indices such as hunger index, human development index, gender related development index, gender gap index or the gender equality index, because of their strong influence on the status of women.

The selection of the index would depend on how and where you would like to apply, and the kind of changes you would like to bring about. It depends entirely on the lens with which you want to look. I would like to quote Albert Einstein “Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts”.

4. STATUS OF WOMEN IN INDIA USING GLOBAL RANKING

Let us see how India ranks in relation to the rest of the world with regard to some of the important indicators.

Health and Nutritional Status

Every third malnourished child in the world lives in India. Although there is no gender gap in the nutritional status between boys and girls, 40 percent of children less than three years are underweight. Comparing body mass index (BMI) of women and men we find that 33 percent of women and 28 percent of men have BMI less than normal. Anaemia is widely prevalent (78.9 percent) among children below three years, 56.2 percent among women and 24.3 percent among men in the age group 15-49, (NFHS-3).

Gender Inequality Index: India ranks 135, among 187 countries. Some of the challenges include prevalence of HIV among 2.24 million people and the epidemic being feminized with more and more women being infected. GII data for 2010 shows that India has a maternal mortality rate of 200 when compared to Estonia with MMR of 2, Singapore and Greece with MMR of 3. World bank data for 2013 shows that the adolescent birth rate in India is 32 when compared to 2 in Switzerland, 1 in Slovenia and Korea.

Global Gender Gap Index: The Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks the national gender gaps. This measure not only captures the sex ratio but also looks at the years lost in malnutrition, disease and violence. According to the ranking of the countries in 2014, India has an overall ranking of 114 among the 142 countries and with regard to Health and Survival. India ranks 141 of the 142 countries included in the ranking of the countries with regard to the gender gap. India is one of the lowest ranking countries.

Gender Related Development Index: This index uses one indicator i.e. life expectancy at birth to reflect health status. For India it is 68.3 for females and 64.7 for males (Human Development Report, 2013). The gap between female and male is only 3.6 years. When compared to Japan women in India die 19 years earlier with a life expectancy of 87. For men in Japan, the life expectancy is 80 which indicate a 7 year gap between life expectancy between men and women. The index assumes that women live 5 years longer than men.

Policies and programmes in place:

The National Health Policy, 1983 updated in 2002.
The National Nutrition Policy, 1993.
National Policy for Children, 2013
Mother and Child Tracking System, 2010
The Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana or the Conditional Maternity Benefit Plan, 2010
Central Government Health Scheme, 1954
National Health Mission, 2005
The National Plan of Action on Nutrition, 1995
The National Plan of Action for Children, 1992
The Integrated Child Development Services Scheme, 1975
National Charter for Children, 2003
Balika Samriddhi Yojana, 1997
Kishori Shakthi Yojana, 2000
Nutrition Programme for Adolescent Girls, 2002-03
Mid-day meal Programme, 1995
Janani Suraksha Yojana, 2005
National Food Security Mission, 2007
National Horticulture Mission, 2005-06
National Iodine Deficiency Disorder Control Programme, 1962
Prophylactic programmes (a) IFA (b) vitamin A and (c) iodine.

Although these many programmes exist, a campaign mode is required if we have to improve the status of girls and women in this country.

Education

As already discussed, education has been used as an indicator for several indices in addition to Education for all Development Index, (EDI) and gender parity index. It cuts across indices such as multidimensional poverty index, inequality adjusted human Development index, gender related development index, global gender gap index, gender equality index and gender equity index. Let us see how India fares with regard to this very important indicator.

In 2010, India ranked 102 out of the 120 countries for EDI and falls under the category of low EDI <0.80 and has a score of 0.790 and a gender specific EFA of 0.865. As of 2011, the gender parity index in primary level enrolment was 1.02, in secondary enrolment it comes down to 0.94 and for tertiary level it is 0.78. While many countries are on course, India needs additional effort especially in the secondary and tertiary levels. You should also recognize that education contributes significantly to the overall development.

Let us now look at India‟s performance with regard to education. The literacy level for 7+, for India is 65.5 when compared to 82.1 for males, (Government of India, 2011). Adult literacy rates 15+, as per 64th NSS round survey report is 61.1 as of 2007-08. Enrolment at all levels from primary to PhD shows gender primary to PhD shows gender disparities growing wider as the level300000 Level-wise enrolment by gender in ‘000’sgoes higher.250000 200000 Level-wise Enrolment in „000‟s 150000You will notice from the graph that 0 at all levels, girls‟ enrolment is lower than that of boys and the proportion increases with increase in the level of enrolment. Looking at the drop-out rate data you will find that more girls in proportion to boys drop out Boys girls Total of school at every level.

Dropout rates as of 2009-10 This also has a link to gender inequalities including social caste inequalities. There are interstate variations.The national educational interventions need to be further strengthened. Therefore we have several policies and programmes in place.

Policies and programmes in place:

National Policy on Education, 1968
Sarava Shiksha Abhyan, 2000
Operation Black Board,
Shiksha Karmi Project
Lok Jumbish Programme
Mahila Samakhya Programme
District Primary Education Programme
Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhyan
Model Schools Scheme
Girls Hostel Scheme
ICT @ Schools
Inclusive Education for Disabled at Secondary Stage
Schemes for Vocational Education
Incentives for Girls for Secondary Education
A large number of scholarship schemes in Higher Education

It is the responsibility of every educational institution to ensure quality of education and campaign for equal access to education. The families and the community at large should also share this responsibility.

Political Participation

The Beijing Platform for Action took up two strategic objectives (i) women‟s full participation in decision making power structures through equal representation in governmental bodies and participation in political parties; (ii) women‟s capacity to participate in decision making and leadership positions through a transparent criteria for entering into decision making positions.

The indicators which capture political empowerment are GEM (dimension 1), GII, GGP, SIGI and HDI. Let us see how India compares with other countries through these indicators.

Among all the three dimensions of GEM, India has a relatively better score for political participation. The score in 1996 was 0.573 and in 2006 India reflected an improvement and scored 0.625.

If you look at the Global Gender Gap Index rankings as of 2014, India ranks 15 with regard to political empowerment, reflecting less gender inequality with regard to political participation. India scores well on political empowerment. How and why does it look good?

(a) In India, voters have elected women to state legislative assemblies and the national parliament;

(b) In the 2014 elections, more women than men voted; (c) Women and men have the same right to vote and contest elections.

There is a growing momentum among various governments towards women‟s participation in the field of politics. The Government of India has put in place several policy instruments and programmes:

The Constitution of India guarantees women the right to vote and be elected.
73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments in 1993 providing 33 % quota for women‟s participation in local self government institutions. In 2009 it was amended to increase the reservations to 50 %.
Women‟s reservation Bill which proposes reservation of 33% seats for women in the
Lower House of the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha and all state legislative assemblies, is pending in the Lok Sabha although the Rajya Sabha has passed the Bill in 2010.
Reserved political positions: Certain number of political positions

All said and done, there is no guarantee of their effective political participation. The overriding factor is that women continue to perform their traditionally defined roles since there is no gender equity and domestic violence is rampant. Other barriers include low literacy levels and lack of training to take up leadership roles. It is imperative to improve the status of women within the household and eradicate illiteracy and poverty for effective political participation by women.

Economic Status

Globally women‟s participation in the labour force is low. They also earn lower salaries when compared to men for equal work. They also have irregular jobs when compared to men, making them more vulnerable.

India ranks 134 out of the 142 countries (World Economic Forum, 2014) with regard to the global gender gap in respect of the sub-index for economic participation and opportunity, a reflection of a wide gender disparity. India is committed towards improving the economic participation of women and has several policies and programmes in place:

The Vth Five Year Plan was the turning point when initiatives were included for improving the economic status of women. The VIIIth Five Year Plan made a shift from development to empowerment.

National Mission for Empowerment of Women aims to ensure economic empowerment of women.
Rashtriya Mahila Kosh 1993 (The National Credit Fund for Women) provides loan to women in the low socio economic groups to start a small business.
Swa-Shakthi,1999: Formation of Self Help Groups, micro-credit and income generating activities.
Swayamsiddha, 2001: Empowerment by formation of Self Help Groups.
STEP, 1987:Formation of Cohesive Women‟s Groups or Cooperatives where they are provided training on skills along with a comprehensive package of health , education, crèche facilities and market linkages. To be linked with Rashtriya Mahila Kosh.
Swalamban, 1982-83: Providing training and skills so that they can seek employment or be self employed on a sustainable basis.
Short stay homes, Women‟s hostels and crèches.
Swadhar, 2001-02: Provide relief and rehabilitation services to women in difficult circumstances.
Stree Shakti 2000-01: Strengthen economic development of rural women and involving them in income generating activates and supporting lateral linkages.
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment guarantee Act, 2005:
Priyadarshini, 2011: Provides access to self help groups

Gender Equity index captures the gap between women and men in education, economy and political empowerment. Looking at the economic participation of women, India is at a critically low level. It has achieved only 37 points out of 100 (100 indicating perfect equality) with Norway having achieved 89 points on gender equity.

Paper Code and Title: H14WD Women’s Development and Empowerment

Module Code and name: H14WD07 Indicators and Status of Women Globally

Name of the Content Writer: Dr. Minnie Mathew

diagram.

Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) includes an inequality adjusted human development index; the loss due to inequality for India is 28.6 %.

All the indicators which reflect gender equality tell you the same story. The steep increase in the participation of the lowest strata of society in the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment scheme has made a visible change. They now have bank accounts and are unionized to bargain for their rights.

Women’s Empowerment

As articulated by Amartya Sen, it is imperative that women should not be mere recipients of benefits but become dynamic promoters of social transformation. We have learnt already that empowerment is a composite measure of women‟s political participation, women in economic decision making positions i.e. women in administrative, management and professional and technical jobs, and women‟s share of income in relation to men.

The World Economic Forum has ranked India 53 out of the 58 countries for Women‟s Empowerment as of 2005. This shows that India is lagging behind with regard to several indicators which reflect women‟s empowerment. The GEM score for India improved from 0.416 in 1996 to 0.497 in 2006. Deeper analysis of the various components reveals that India‟s scores were the lowest with regard to women‟s power over economic resources. The good news is that the situation is improving over the years as a result of the policies of the government of India. A few are listed here:

i. National Mission for Empowerment of Women, 2010: Strengthen the processes that promote all round development of Women.

ii. Sabla, Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls 2010: Empower adolescent girls with nutrition & health services in addition to upgrading home skills, life skills and vocational skills.

iii. National Policy for Empowerment of Women, 2001: Aims at upliftment, development and empowerment.

Violence against women and girls

When you read the newspaper, almost every day you come across cases of violence against women, covering an array of instances: rape, intimate partner or non-intimate sexual violence, trafficking, female infanticide, prenatal sex selection, genital mutilation, forced marriage, early marriage, dowry violence etc.

Paper Code and Title: H14WD Women’s Development and Empowerment

Module Code and name: H14WD07 Indicators and Status of Women Globally

Name of the Content Writer: Dr. Minnie Mathew

Violence against women is best captured by the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI). As we have learnt earlier, SIGI is based on both

quantitative and qualitative data on discriminatory social institutions in 160 countries. If you look at this map (OECD, brochure 2014) you will find that India is appearing as one of the worst countries with

regard to violence against women and girls. In recognition of the problems, India has several policies and legal provisions to protect women from violence:

i. Ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), 1993

ii. Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, PCMA, 2006.

iii. Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961

iv. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005.

v. Anti-rape provisions in the Criminal Law 2013

vi. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses Act (POSCO), 2012

vii. The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013

In spite of the stipulated legal age of marriage, India accounts for the highest number of early marriages in the world. With regard to parental authority, the right to divorce, or the enforcement of equal inheritance, the practices are not favourable to women. Practice of dowry continues to exist in many parts of India.

Although India has enacted the „The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, the implementation has been weak. Domestic Violence is on the increase. As per the NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau), 1,06,527 cases were recorded on cruelty by husbands and relatives of the husbands and the conviction was only for 15 percent of the cases. According to the demographic and health survey, 40 percent of married women experienced sexually, physically and emotionally abused by their husbands/partners and 54 percent of women and 51 percent of men felt that domestic violence was justified. Sexual harassment is rampant in India.

The 2011 census shows a sex ratio of 914 females to 1000 males. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed concern over the declining sex ratio, especially in 100 districts and has suggested a campaign to save the girls using the social media. The under 5 mortality rate for girls is , 79.2 for 1000 live births when compared to 69.7 percent for boys (Demographic Health Survey for India 2006-2007) reflecting a son preference.

Paper Code and Title: H14WD Women’s Development and Empowerment

Module Code and name: H14WD07 Indicators and Status of Women Globally

Name of the Content Writer: Dr. Minnie Mathew

In spite of women‟s equal access to property and land, there are discriminatory practices in India reflected through research studies. Access to finance by women is very low. Not having bank accounts has been found to be an important reason. Prime Minister Modi‟s banking for all can hopefully make a change provided women also create their bank accounts. Access to credit is also low due to restricted control over collateral. Microfinance through Women‟s groups in India has increased access to credit to women in an informal setting.

While women are entitled to maternity benefits for 12 weeks with full pay, women in the informal sector do not benefit by this benefit.

5. India’s Progress on the Millennium Development Goals

Millennium Declaration was made by 189 nations in the year 2000 to address the major development challenges of the world. The promise was to achieve eight millennium development goals by the year 2015. Let us look at India‟s progress as reflected by UNDP in the table below:

Target No.	Target Description	Progress Signs

1.	Halve the proportion of people below the poverty line between
	1990 and 2015.

2.	Halve, the proportion of persons suffering from hunger between	Θ
	1990 and 2015.

3.	All children, both boys and girls complete primary education by
	2015.

4.	Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education,
	by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015

5.	Reduce the under five mortality rate by two-thirds, between	ΘΔ
	1990 and 2015.

6.	Reduce the maternal mortality rate by three quarters, between	ΘΔ
	1990 and 2015.

7.	Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015

8.	Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other	ΘΔ
	major diseases by 2015.

9.	Integrate the principles of sustainable development into the
	national policies and programmes and reverse the loss of

	13

Paper Code and Title: H14WD Women’s Development and Empowerment

Module Code and name: H14WD07 Indicators and Status of Women Globally

Name of the Content Writer: Dr. Minnie Mathew

	environmental resources

10.	Halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking	ΔΘ
	water and basic sanitation by 2015.

11.	Achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100	Θ
	million slum dwellers by 2020.

12.	Make available the benefits of new technologies, especially
	information and communication in cooperation with the private
	sector,

Δ: Moderately/almost nearly on

Θ: Slow/almost off-track

ΔΔ: On-track or fast considering all indicators

track considering

considering

all

indicators indicators

Source: UNDP, Millennium Development Goals

In spite of various favorable policies and programmes, the progress to achieve the MDGs appears to be rather slow in many spheres except gender parity in elementary education and information, communication technology and action to reverse the loss of environmental resources. The key issues which require more attention are: reducing child and infant mortality, access to sanitation and elimination of open defecation.

6. SUMMARY

We understood the status of women both nationally and globally with the help of various indicators which rank the various countries according to their performance. We learnt about Gender Parity Index, Education for All Development Index, Education Development Index, Gender Empowerment Measure, Women‟s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, Gender Inequality Index, Gender Equity Index, Global Gender Gap Index, Social Institutions and Gender Index, Gender Related Development Index, Human Development Index and the Inequality Adjusted Human Development Index. We tried to understand the vulnerability of women through gender related indices and the dimensions of women‟s vulnerability. Global comparisons helped us to understand the relative progress we have made in relation to the rest of the world and what should be the thrust areas of our policy and national instruments. We also looked at the government interventions which address the multidimensionality of women‟s vulnerability.

Paper Code and Title: H14WD Women’s Development and Empowerment

Module Code and name: H14WD07 Indicators and Status of Women Globally

Name of the Content Writer: Dr. Minnie Mathew

CONCLUSION

Gender discrimination can contribute to the vulnerability of countries. Gender disparities have persisted over long periods. Therefore there is a need for consistent efforts to reduce the vulnerability of women so that they become equal partners in the national development process. There are several policy steps and interventions. There is no denial of the progress, but the pace needs to be accelerated and action to be focused, intensified, and sustained. There is a need for constant review, to understand the mismatches and have a new vision to expedite progress. Every woman should have the right to education, health and other related services.

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