Skip to main content

India losing out heavily on GDP due to gender inequality: Rating "comparable" to Middle-East, North Africa

Gender equity: Incremental GDP 2025 in full potential scenario
A recently-released study by one of the world’s most prestigious consultants, McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), has estimated that women in India contribute just 17 percent to the Gross National Product (GDP) as against 37 percent global average, as a result of which the country is losing out 1.4 per cent in terms of annual GDP growth.
The study says that, if India were to achieve its “full potential” of gender equity, the country could add an annual GDP to the tune of $2.9 trillion by 2025, which is 60 percent higher compared to what it calls "business-as-usual case."
However, as achieving "full potential" is not possible, MGI report, titled "The Power of Parity: Advancing Women's Equality in India", says, it has worked out another scenario, called "best in region scenario"gender equity, under which India can possibly could "boost annual GDP by $0.7 trillion, or 16 percent, in 2025 compared with a business-as-usual case, adding an incremental 1.4 percentage points each year to its GDP growth rate".
Pointing out that “women are currently particularly under-represented in India’s economy compared with their potential”, the study says, the 17 percent women’s contribution to India’s GDP stands in sharp contrast to China’s 41 percent, Sub-Saharan Africa’s 39 percent, Latin America’s 33 percent.
“Women in India only represent 24 percent of the labour force that is engaged in any form of work in the market economy, compared with an average of 40 percent globally”, the study says.
It adds, “India’s position on share of women in workforce is on a par with countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where, unlike India, legal provisions can restrict many forms of female employment in many countries.”
Gender equity: Incremental GDP growth 2025
in best-in-region scenario
Calculating Gender Parity Index (GPS) on the basis of four categories – equality in work, legal protection and political voice, physical security and autonomy, and enablers of economic opportunity, the study says, on a scale of 0.00 to 1.00, where a GPS of 1.00 indicates gender parity, India’s aggregate GPS is 0.48.
While this is “higher than the GPS of the rest of South Asia, excluding India (0.44), yet, regretfully, it is “about the same as that in MENA (0.48), and lower than the GPS of Sub-Saharan Africa (0.57)”, the study insists.
“The best performing region in the world in terms of overall GPS is North America and Oceania comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States with an aggregate GPS of 0.74”, the study says.
Not denying that “India’s economy would have the highest relative boost among all regions of the world if its women participated in paid work in the market economy on a similar basis to men”, the study believes, “However, it is unlikely that this scenario will materialize” because of the existing “barriers”.
“The below-potential contribution of women to India’s GDP today—measured by their share of paid work in the market economy—contrasts with their higher share of unpaid care work such as cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children and older members of the family”, the study believes.
While globally, women spend “roughly three times the amount of time spent by men on unpaid work”, in India, “the situation is more extreme—women perform 9.8 times the amount of unpaid care work than men”, it underlines.
“If that unpaid work were to be valued and compensated in the same way as paid work, it would contribute $0.3 trillion to India’s economic output. Much of this unpaid work may be done willingly and provide great satisfaction to women and welfare for their families”, the study calculates.

Comments

TRENDING

Instilling sense of insecurity among 'fearful' millions, Modi to win comfortably

  This was one of the most interesting reports I read on the Lok Sabha elections. Titled, "If Sangam Pilgrims Are Bellwether, They Indicate Clear Majority for Modi",  published  in what is considered to be an anti-Narendra Modi site, "The Wire", it reports on interaction with boatmen and pilgrims from across India, even as pointing towards why Modi would get a "clear majority."

India's 78% firms think achieving net zero is cost to business, 52% say it's risky: Report

 A leading global management consulting firm working with more than three-quarters of the Fortune Global 500, as well as with government bodies and nonprofit organizations, has said that while vast majority of Indian businesses surveyed (91%) claim they have set targets to reach net zero, with 51% of them viewing these targets as “highly achievable”, ironically, most of them (78%) consider sustainability as a cost to business rather than opportunity.

Anti-Rupala Rajputs 'have no support' of numerically strong Kshatriya communities

Personally, I have no love lost for Purshottam Rupala, though I have known him ever since I was posted as the Times of India representative in Gandhinagar in 1997, from where I was supposed to do political reporting. In news after he made the statement that 'maharajas' succumbed to foreign rulers, including the British, and even married off their daughters them, there have been large Rajput rallies against him for “insulting” the community.

India 'not keen' on legally binding global treaty to reduce plastic production

  Even as offering lip-service to the United Nations Environment Agency (UNEA) for the need to curb plastic production, the Government of India appears reluctant in reducing the production of plastic. A senior participant at the UNEP’s  fourth session  of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4), which took place in Ottawa in April last week, told a plastics pollution seminar that India, along with China and Russia, did not want any legally binding agreement for curbing plastic pollution.

'Modi govt's assault on dissent': Foreign funds of top finance NGO blocked

  In a surprise move, the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, has cancelled the foreign funding license of the well-known advocacy group, Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA), known for critically examining India's finance and banking sectors from human rights and environmental angle.

'28% rise in sedition cases': Top global NGO alliance rates India's civil space 'repressed'

  Rating India's civic space as  repressed , Civicus, a global civil society alliance, in its new  report  submitted to the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) on the state of civic space in the country has said that the use of sedition law against the Modi government’s critics continues. "Under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sedition cases have increased by 28 per cent with over 500 cases against more than 7,000 people", it says.

Urban Naxal to Amit Shah, AAP Bharuch candidate tops ADR's Gujarat criminal cases list

  Refusing to go beyond the data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on the Lok Sabha candidates’ own declarations of their criminal record, educational qualification and assets, the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), a top-notch advocacy group, has declared Aam Aadmi Party candidate Chaitar Vasava, 35, having the highest number of criminal cases of all those fighting the electoral battle on 26 seats in Gujarat.