Capability deprivation of women: are women holding up half the sky in Asia?

Abstract

This paper begins by discussing why gender equality is a necessary condition for economic transformation in the current phase of development. It argues that economic transformation in developing countries will be determined to a greater extent by gender equality than was the case in an earlier phase of transformation in the nineteenth century in non-industrialized countries. This is because gender equality is central to hastening the demographic transition. It goes on to show that the human development status of women in most East and Southeast Asian countries has also hastened that demographic transition. But then it also examines the surviving forms of gender discrimination all over Asia and finds that in South Asia gender discrimination is most severe. These surviving forms of gender discrimination have shown themselves in an adverse sex ratio as well as political non-representation throughout most of the region – most severely in South Asia.

Keywords:

• gender
• discrimination
• Asia
• malnutrition
• capabilities
• sex ratio
• political representation

Notes

1. For Kerala, this fact was true only until 1990. Since then, Kerala has experienced fairly rapid per capita income growth, and in any case much faster than in the earlier decades.

2. Like Malaysia and Indonesia, the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union also had maintained relatively high TFRs compared to the rest of the former Soviet Union. The usual explanation offered for this phenomenon is cultural influences.

3. These authors also suggest that although in Africa the greatest obligation on a woman is to look after her husband's children, in South Asia tradition requires a woman to make her husband and mother-in-law the focus of her responsibilities.

4. The mother's health status affects not just the child's nutritional status, but the prospects for survival of the child. Thus, in India, 60% of the infant mortality rate is accounted for by neonatal mortality (i.e. death within 28 days of birth). In fact, although vaccine-preventable causes of infant mortality reduced infant mortality rate in India in the 1990s, neonatal mortality has remained constant. Neonatal mortality is highly correlated with low-birthweight. Personal communication from Dr Vinod Paul, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

5. Haemoglobin is essential for transporting oxygen from the lungs to other tissues and organs of the body. Anaemia results from a deficiency of iron, folate, vitamin B12 or some other nutrients.

6. The ratio is highest in CEE/CIS countries on account of excess male mortality after the transition began. Hence the proper comparator is really the ratio for industrialized countries.

7. See, for example, the numbers in Table 6 in United Nations Developmental Programme (2002).

8. Forty one per cent reported that they make the decision on their own, and 28% reported that they make the decision together with their husbands or someone else in the household.

9. Data from the NFHS-2 for India suggest that 55% of infants were exclusively breastfed in 1998, 23% receive breast milk plus water and 20% receive supplements along with breast milk.

10. However, one should note that there is a perversity in the CIS sex ratio being more favourable to women than even that in the industrialized countries. The reason is simply that the death rates of men rose sharply in the CIS countries after the transition to a market economy, partly as the public health system collapsed, and partly as incomes fell and alcoholism increased sharply.

11. Thus, India has one of the world's largest preschool feeding programmes – the Integrated Child Development Scheme – which has been in existence for a quarter of a century. In fact, it now covers almost all districts of the country. However, the programme was until recently focused on the 3–6 age group rather than the 0–3 age group. That emphasis has indeed changed in recent years, but it will be years before the impact of the change will begin to be felt. The policy implication is that all South Asian countries need to have a programme with national coverage, comparable to the Integrated Child Development Scheme in India, and naturally focused on the 0–3 age group.