How do we pay tribute to Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn’t be that women are the exceptions.” — A quote that has flooded the social media today as Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg passes away at 87. She has been an exemplary woman who has devoted her life for advancement of gender equality and women’s rights. She has made a real-world impact by ensuring institutes to allow Equal opportunity for both genders, equal pay for equal work , ensuring abortion to be a choice of a women and bringing in foreign law and norms to shape U.S. law in judicial opinions.
People across the globe have taken to social media to celebrate the legend and her contributions towards closing gender gaps. What we need to ask ourselves is — do we really understand the depths of gender gap that judge RBG fought for? How can we contribute and continue the work she has done over the decades ?Is there a better way to pay homage to this legend than just through posts, comments and likes in social media?
What is the real picture of gender gap in India?
Let’s start by acknowledging and understanding the indicators that show gender gap. According to WEF’s Global Gender Gap Index, India ranks 112 among 150 participating countries, lower than our neighboring countries. The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) published the findings which states the ratio of male to female is 52:48. However, the LFPR (Labor force participation rate ) is 55% for men while for women is 17%. What is stranger is LFPR for urban women stands at 15% while that of rural women is 18%. Even though fewer women are willing to join the labor market than men, the latter are paid more than the former. The average wages for men are 1.2 to 1.7 times more than that of women. What is even starker is the fact that women with relatively higher education levels face a higher unemployment rate than men. This lack of formal jobs, coupled with shrinking availability of agricultural work, has led to declining numbers of women in the rural workforce. On average, 66 percent of the work done by Indian women is unpaid, compared to 12 percent of men’s. Women spend on average 352 minutes a day on unpaid work against 52 minutes among men. With regard to unpaid care work, women in India spend on average 297 minutes a day on tasks such as taking care of children, the elderly and the sick; in comparison, men spend 31 minutes a day. With two women judges out of the 30 in the Supreme Court and 78 in the high courts amongst hundreds of male justices, India has a long road to cover. Over the decades, we have made economic growth by improving GDP per capita, however, we have not matched the progress towards women’s equal economic participation.
Why is gender equality important ?
Gender inequality is a pressing global issue with huge implications not just for the lives and livelihoods of girls and women but, more generally, for human development, labor markets, productivity, GDP growth, and inequality. In India we normally see Gender inequality as a moral and social issue. What people fail to understand is that it is a critical economic issue. If women who account for half the working-age population — do not achieve their full economic potential, the economy will suffer. According to Mckinsey Report, if every country matched the progress towards gender equality of its fastest improving neighbor, the global GDP could increase by 12 trillion USD by 2025. In India , we could see an incremental GDP growth of .7 trillion USD.
What causes gender gap ?
In India,Gender gaps is primarily shaped by 5 main issues : 1) the pervasiveness of entrenched patriarchal social norms that hinder women’s mobility, safety and freedom to work; 2) rising household incomes that create a disincentive for labor market participation among women mainly informed by the same norms 3) the disproportionate burden of unpaid work and unpaid care work on women; and 4) the lack of quality jobs for women reinforced by gendered occupational segregation and a significant gender wage gap 5) Unequal education levels leading to financial and digital exclusions.
How do we bridge the gap ?
Women’s access to decent paid work is an undisputed ethical and economic imperative and a primary human right and aspiration. It is clear that the current under-participation of women in paid employment in India is not due to their lack of will. More than a third of Indian women (both urban and rural) primarily engaged in housework report wanting to work for pay if a job were available. Hence, a new normative framework that rewrites the existing standards that systematically keep women out of the workforce is the need of the hour as emerging technologies and digitization are transforming work in India.
De-feminization of unpaid work and caregiving : Innovative policies are required to incentivize more active sharing of caregiving responsibilities and in the long-term, changing the overall organizational culture to reverse what is known as “motherhood penalty”. For instance, companies could support the return of working mothers into the workforce, by paying more to fathers/other parents for taking over the caregiving responsibilities.
Social security and protection must be de-linked from employment and linked to the individual :A significantly higher number of women in India work in the informal economy compared to the formal sector. The rise in non-standard ,temporary work and independent contracting is helping women since they offer advantages such as easier and cheaper access, lower transaction costs, flexibility, but these workers lose out on the social security, benefits and protections afforded to those employed in permanent job. Providing benefits like medical and social security to every individual is the need of the hour to ensure women continue to leverage the non-formal workspace.
All workspaces are safe, gender-inclusive and non-discriminatory: The responsibility for underwriting the security and wellbeing of workers in all co-working or public spaces must be reconsidered. Safety, in general, remains a key concern in India . Rape culture and the perception of danger reinforces the social norms that restrict women’s mobility. Stricter laws and security to help protect individuals at all kinds of work places should be a must.
Policies and incentives must catalyse women’s equal participation : Aspirations are shaped by socio-cultural norms and perceptions about what a woman can and should do. Men and women do not have access to the same amount of information and opportunities pertaining to education, skills, and jobs that have been traditionally male dominated. An urgent need to provide education to all and incentivising girl child education , ensuring vocational training to both gender and support for jobs with equal focus is necessary.
Equal compensation for equal work: India has a gender wage gap of 34 percent, despite the existence of India’s Equal Remuneration Act 1976 which mandates equal pay for the same or similar work and bars discrimination in hiring. Further, the pay gap increases with age, work experience, and rise in occupational hierarchy — thus disincentivizing the women to stay on. Reform to structures that influence existing issues such as the gender pay gap, gender-based occupational segregation, and biases in hiring should be addressed as we transform into digital economy.
Women-led products, services, and solutions: Female consumer has never been considered a growth market beyond cosmetics, even as companies are now acknowledging the rising ‘she-conomy’. As women represent the largest emerging global market segment and economy, there is an opportunity to correct the status quo if industries are female-driven and designs are diversity-oriented. At present, only 14 percent of businesses in India are run by women. Focused support to women entrepreneurs through formal and collateral financing and necessary mentor-ship is needed to encourage participation and success of women in business.
Current trends show that gender-neutral policies do not lead to gender-equal outcomes. Therefore, policy interventions aimed at increasing female labor force participation must acknowledge the pervasiveness of gender stereotypes that lead to occupational segregation, the unequal learning and skills-development opportunities for boys and girls, and women’s informal and unpaid work. Further, there is a need for India to find ways to recognize and institutionalize sharing of care work between men and women, to reduce the gender wage gap, and aggressively work towards creating a violence-free, level playing field for its women to thrive and become leaders in the economy.
“Fight for things that you care about and do it in a way that will lead others to join you” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
So, a real way to pay tribute to this legend is to find a RBG within us. Every dimension of our life should be a conscious movement towards gender equality both in work place and in society. Only a true behavioral change and collective demand for a gender neutral society will help India in it’s fight against gender gap.
