Women and Empowerment: Role of Education
Presented at Asia Pacific Conference at Bangkok held on July 1st 2004
By Kamla Nath (Director: Sandesh India)
Introduction
We have come a long way since 1975, when the year was declared by the UN as International Women’s Year. UN and all countries were amazed how little was known about women, what they do, where they stand in the power equation of the society, if they are unequal and discriminated and how much. To know more about us, the UN and many international agencies and member states released enormous resources for research on women. However, while, results of research were awaited, it was apparent even to the inexperienced that women were not benefiting from the development efforts in the developing countries and almost all the benefits were being monopolized by men, widening the gender gap in economic status.
Scholars governments and international aid agencies dealing with women’s development were faced with the dilemma how to integrate women into development projects and programs. As results of research and reports of evaluation of the development projects and programs became available, all development agencies were convinced that it was difficult to integrate women in stereotype development projects and hope that it will benefit women. We had to have development programmes and projects focusing especially on women’s work. We started coining words like integrated development, women’s welfare/women’s development programmes, community participation and gender conscientization etc. By the late 70’s we had enough data to show that in order to improve women status we have to focus and direct development inputs to areas which are exclusively women’s preserves. I am reminded of the excitement on development of irrigated rice, providing development inputs for women’s vegetable gardens or teaching them improved methods of salt production etc. in Africa. With the best of intentions all development benefits from these projects were also monopolized by men. Men got the newly developed irrigated rice plots allotted in their names and became members in the cooperative societies setup for giving loans and disbursing inputs and for marketing the produce. Similarly, in the other two projects some how men controlled the produce and sale proceeds. The women were too illiterate to become members of cooperative societies. Through these efforts while women got to do more non-domestic work, they lacked control over not only economic resources but earnings and therefore their economic condition did not improve. It was felt that all this is happening because women do not have equal power in control over resources, that their social and legal status was lower than that of the males and they have no decision-making power.
Women needed to be empowered to become equal to men and thus have equal access to development resources and benefits. This was real meat for the feminists and women’s movement to grab and thrash the governments, lawmakers, and implementers of laws and point out lacunas in social and political structures which were responsible for women being so powerless. In order to empower women we need not only to give them more economic power but bring changes in the entire, social, political and legal system of the countries because these are responsible for women’s lower status in society and the main hindrance in their progress. Thus women’s empowerment came to be associated with social justice and equality. The women’s groups (we call them NGOs) started evolving strategies to achieve the two goals of equality and social justice. Without further digressing into the issue of empowerment of women – whether considered in absolute term or in comparison to men (whom women were too afraid to alienate), it was concluded that women’s fight is not against men but against the system of patriarchy and all its manifestations.
Equality in social systems is a necessary condition for empowerment of women. However, it is not sufficient for their development; development and empowerment are not synonymous. Development refers to progress of an individual group in economic, social, political and cultural context which has been evolved into what is known as human development index with subsequent derivative - gender development/gender empowerment indices. Human development index has replaced per capita as index of development. The economic growth models measured by increased in GDP or Per Capita Income were considered by scholars to be disastrous for poor and the women; they increased national income but did not bring about development in any real sense.
Education is central to the process of sustainable development and is empowering if its contents are geared towards it. Therefore empowering form of education is essential. Education and its contents are vital instruments in not only empowering the students to make the best of economic opportunities but can bring about far reaching changes in stereotype gender status and relations between sexes and social attitudes. Thus the role of education in empowerment is not only learning of three ‘R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic) but includes awareness raising, critical analysis of various structures and acquiring knowledge for empowerment at all levels. Education should include not only formal education but also skill training and functional literacy.
I shall leave the discussion and analysis of progress on the content of empowering education and training to experts on the subject but must confess that lot of research has been done by apex institutions like NCERT (National Council on Education Research and Training) in India to develop contents for education and training for implementation of the National Policy on Education and for providing wholesome education and would concentrate on the progress made in the education of girls in India.
First and foremost let us demystify the myth that girls are not sent to school because they are girls and in view of their primary role as mothers and housewives. Girls and women are not only housewives and mothers in families where they are not educated; they are also “workers” in the economic sense. They were not being educated because of their indispensable role in the home and in the household economy. However, with some progress in income level of a family, both boys and girls are released for education. There has been rapid increase in education of girls and women in recent decades in rural and urban areas. I am not dismissing at all the reality of discrimination when it comes to education; the boy is given the first opportunity but with economic progress of the family the girl follows the same path. Again the notion of man being the primary earner has not been dismantled but women’s right and need to pursue their career and to have their own independent income and personality development is being accepted and respected. These changes, which are visible in rural and urban areas, have been captured in the data given in the attached tables. The effect of rapid increase in the education of girls is still to be felt because of almost decade and a half of gestation period between changes in the attitude towards education of girls as a result of economic progress of population, expansion of facilities for education of girls etc. But increase in the number and proportion of girls at different levels of education and tremendous drop in dropout rates indicate a strong trend in education of girls not as a social obligation but with a long-term view of developing them into empowered human beings.
The empowering role of education, training and skill development among women has been accepted by the society and enormous infrastructure for provision of the above facilities are being provided in the public and the private sector considering the need and demand for these acquisition.
While currently the government spends only about 3% of the GDP on education, it intends to increase it to 6% to honour its commitment in the Beijing Platform for Action.
However, in the private sector there is enormous expansion in the infrastructure for provision of education, training and skills for women in urban and rural areas. I was amazed to see that in a backward village in Rajasthan where in 1960 there was only a small primary school for girls running from a temple, during my revisit after 40 years there were six schools mostly run by private initiatives providing primary to secondary level education which according to the villagers was of a higher quality than the one provided in the government school. The strong desire for girls to go to college and become not only school teachers but social workers and bank employees was expressed through their demand for girls-only college; there is a co-ed college at the district headquarter. The girls were prepared to go to the district headquarter on their bicycles to attain higher levels of education. That is what we call empowerment! There is a plethora of training institutes for diverse training and skills in urban areas. Every small or big locality in Delhi has a private computer training institute all of which are dominated by girl students. Due to shortage of time I have not been able to collect and analyze data on expansion of educational facilities in the private sector. The results of these trends will be visible within a decade when these girls/women enter the work force in modern industries. With their skills applicable in any industry women will have a self-sustainable economic status.
I have great faith and conviction that within a decade Indian women will dominate in almost all fields of economic activity, having acquired the essential instrument for empowerment – education and skill training. We see the excellence of women in all fields, whether it is in secondary school results, entry of girls into colleges in cities, and growth in their numbers as workers in public and private organized sectors. Women’s equal participation in politics and equality in the legal system are major political issues for almost a decade now.
We need to assign credit for the process of change where it is due, so as to keep our focus clear and assign tasks and targets to various agents of change. The major agent of change is government policy and political commitment; the role of international pressure on government policy from outside and from NGOs within is also of importance, however.
We give below some indicators of this change on patterns of work participation of women, in their retention in school, health and desire for equal say in decision-making (Political Empowerment).
Work Participation Rates and Employment
The data in table 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 show that during the last 30 years, female work participation rate in rural areas has nearly doubled from 15.9 in 1971 to 31.0 in 2001, it has also gone up among urban women but at a somewhat lower pace. In urban areas the female work participation rate is one-third (7–11.5%) that among the rural women in the three censuses 1981, 1991 and 2001. In 1971, however, the urban female work participation rate was half that of the rural. The higher percentage increase in the rural female work participation rate compared to urban female work participation rate shows that availability of work for rural women has expanded much faster than that for urban women. If one were to analyze the data on work participation rates of rural and urban women by education we may find a sharp decline in work participation rate among illiterate urban women. Among males, however, in both rural and urban areas the work participation rates have not undergone any major change during the period. (Table 1)
In the organized sector in urban areas there has been a shift in work from primary sector to tertiary sector among both males and females. The proportion employed in the secondary sector has more or less remained the same in the country; there seems to be stagnation in the industrial sector employment. The shift from primary to tertiary sector has taken place primarily in the urban areas where the service sector has increased considerably and where more and more urban educated women workers tend to concentrate. (Table 2)
In the organized sector the proportion of women among total workers has increased from 11% in 1971 to 17.8% in 2001, which is associated with permanent, full-time, salary/wage employment. (Table 3) Their numbers has increased more than 3 times in the public sector, and 2½ times in the private sector. The phenomenal increase of 684% among women employed in the quasi- central and state services shows concentration of women with middle educational levels in the public sector. In the private sector where women face much more competition in employment, particularly in large establishments there has been doubling in their numbers. In the private sector of the small establishments while the total number of employees is one of the lowest (in 1999) and figures for earlier periods are not available, however, almost 30% of the total workers are women; the highest in the organized sector. It shows concentration of women in jobs requiring middle level education and training and are low paid without any job security. (Table 4) Also women continue to concentrate and dominate in industries where returns for work are low and the workers have to spend long and unscheduled hours. (Table 5) With modernization of the traditional industries and increase in numbers of skilled, trend and educated women, their numbers among workers in the public and private organized sector is not only expected to increase but they will enter higher echelons within the sector.
In spite of laws against employment of children, according to official estimates 11-14 million children below the age of 14 work in India (recently there has been a move to raise the age to 18 for classification of children); other estimates are five to ten times that of the official figures. Children under 14 constitute 3.6% of the total labour force; 13.5% of male and 10.3% of female children work. However, 85% of the work in agriculture. In industry they concentrate in beedi making, silk & carpet weaving and in glass industry. 17% of domestic workers are under 15, majority of the employers prefer girls between 12-15 years old for domestic work.
The National Policy for education 1974 and 1986 and National Policy on child labour 1987 has strategized to allocate large sums to eradicate child labour by expansion in facilities for education. Child labour is concentrated, according to official statistics in 11 states. (Table 6)
Education
The data in tables 7, 8, 9 and 10 show that in 2001 while 75% of the males were literate only half of the females were. However, increase in female literacy rates from 8.9% in 1951 to 54.2% in 2001 (seven times) is much higher than the increase in the rates of males from 21.1% to 75.8% (three and half times) during the period. (Table 7) This is reflected also in the increase in the proportion of girls among children going to school. The enrolment of girls has increased in all levels of education – primary, middle and secondary. The percentage increase in female enrollment is much higher in middle and secondary levels indicating tremendous decline in dropout rates among girls from primary to the higher levels. The dropout rates among male and female children are almost the same in all three levels of education in 1996-97, closing the gender gap in retention of children from primary to the secondary levels. (Table 8 & 9)
Only about 100 districts out of a total of 577 have female literacy rates below the national average (i.e. below 40%). There are only 2 districts where almost 80% of population is illiterate. These are perhaps the districts with concentration of poor and tribals. Research analysis in geographic concentration of poverty made by scholars indicate concentration of the poor in districts with high proportion of tribal population.* If we were to analyze female literacy rates with levels of economic development of districts we may find a direct co-relation between the two. Also except for Haryana, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan there is direct co-relation between human development index and gender development index. (Table 10)
Health
The data in tables 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 show that the sex ratio (females per thousand males) has continued to decline from 972 in 1901 to 933 in 2001. The lowest sex ratio was recorded in 1991 (927). The declining sex ratio shows higher percentage increase in male population than the female population. The lower sex ratio is due to higher mortality rate among females at birth (female children being killed or neglected soon after birth) higher proportion of males born than females (female fetuses being aborted before birth), neglect of girls during infancy. However, reversal of this trend in 2001 is primarily due to legislation passed against misuse of sex determination test and monetary incentive declared by the NDA government e.g. Rs. 500/- to be given for care and protection of the girl child at birth and announcement of scholarship (free education) announced by the current congress led government. (Table 11)
There appears to be a definite preference for male children and neglect of female children. However, if allowed to be born and survive infancy, the life expectancy at birth of females has gone up above that of the males both in rural and urban areas since 1981-1985; this trend was recorded in urban areas a decade earlier – 1970-75. It appears to be due to provision of better health facilities in rural areas during the last twenty years, while progress in provision of health facilities came first in the urban areas. Life expectancy of females has gone up more than that of the males in all age groups during the last quarter of a century. In 2001 while males can expect to live for 64 years, women will live as long as 67 years; their natural stronger protection against disease and sickness is fully at play. (Table 12) Contribution of better nutrition on longevity needs to be analyzed, however.
The death rates of females, however, is more than that of the males in all age groups in Bihar, UP, and Chandigarh. Also the women in Bihar, Orissa, MP, Assam, Rajasthan, and UP have shorter life span than the women in the rest of India. These are also the states with lowest female literacy rates. (Table 13)
Total fertility rates although still higher in rural areas than in the urban areas, the rates have declined at the same speed in both the areas. It indicates equal zeal in adoption of family planning methods (traditional or modern) among both rural and urban families. It also indicates increase in economic levels and in survival rates of children. (Table 14)
While all health indicators show a substantial improvement in the health of the population and particularly of females, expenditure on health as percentage of total planned investment during the five-year-plans has progressively declined from 3.3% to 1.7%. Decline in government expenditure accompanied by improvement in overall health of the population indicates expansion of health facilities in the private sector as well as improvement in nutrition. People appear to be spending substantial portion of their income on health and nutrition (of both males and females) rather than depending on free government health facilities which are neither adequate nor of the best quality. (Table 15)
Political Participation of Women
The data in tables 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 show that women’s participation in the political process as voters has gone up steadily from 46.6% in 1962 to 55.6% in 1999. The male participation in voting does not show any trend. In fact it has hovered around 60 to 68%. The gender gap in voter’s participation has narrowed from 15% to 8%. (Table 16)
Women still constitute less than 9% among the members of the lower house of parliament. However, their proportion has almost doubled since 1952. (Table 17) While in the earlier Lok Sabhas mostly women above 40 years of age group dared to contest and win the general elections since the 8th Lok Sabha (i.e. 1984) the age specific distribution of elected women members does not show any age prejudice. (Table 18)
Participation of women in the state legislatures, however, is very small except in Delhi, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh. There seems to be no co-relation between Human Development Index and Political Participation of women in state legislatures. The two states of Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh with low female literacy rates are clubbed with Delhi and Kerala with one of the highest literacy rates in indicators of women’s political empowerment. (Table 19)
Party women have a much higher win-ability rate than the males. (Table 20) However, the number of women candidates who are either backed by unknown parties or stand as independent candidates have no chance of getting elected. They constitute large majority of the women candidates primarily because established political parties do not give tickets to women. In the eleventh Lok Sabha election from Delhi state 389 out of 491 (almost seventy women candidates for each seat) women candidates for the seven seats were independent and none of them were elected. In the twelfth Lok Sabha the number of independent candidates declined to 114 and only one was elected. The winability rate of these women is zero. (Source: “Women’s Struggle Towards Equality”, 1998; Center for Social Research, Table 3.1)
Participation of women in local government: As a result of seventy third and seventy fourth amendments of the constitution (1992) one third of the seats in all elected bodies from the village punchayat to the district levels are reserved for women. One third of the Chairman of these local bodies are also reserved for women by rotation. About 1,000,000 (ten million) women have gained access to decision-making in local bodies. If and when the women’s reservation bill for 33% reservation of seats for women in national and state legislations is passed, we will have lot of colour and concerned legislation in these bodies. Women’s entry into electoral politics through reservation has and will quicker the pace of women’s political empowerment.
Educational level is not a criteria so far in distribution of ticket for contest in national and state legislatures. But its absence among elected members who become ministers and have to tackle complex development issues is being felt. For example, in Delhi state the task of deciding and supervising planned development of the mega city is under the charge of a man who is just a high school graduate. The chief ministers of two state, Bihar and UP, are/were women with strong political backing but with no technical expertise in complexities of governance while the Delhi Chief Minister is university educated and the effects of this input is visible. If more educated men and women with specialization in economics/administration/development were to lead governments and ministries we will definitely have better results.
In pursuance of government policies and international commitment as well as pressure from NGOs for empowerment of women, several important policies have been announced, bills for additional policies are waiting for legislation, several international instrument of commitment have been signed by Government of India. Under NGOs pressure major changes in the legal system have taken place and passage of additional laws are in the offing. These have all created an enabling environment for empowerment of women.
To summarize these in the:
Sphere of government policy in India following actions have been taken:-
1. National Plan of Action for Women 1976
2. National Policy for Education 1974 and 1986
3. National Policy on Child Labour 1987
4. National Perspective Plan – 1988-2000
5. National Plan of Action for the Girl Child – 1991-2000
6. Shram Shakti Report 1988 by the National Commission on Self Employed Women in Informal sector
7. Setting up of a Department of Women and Child Development
8. Setting up of National Commission for Women
9. Food and Nutrition Board
10. Broadening and deepening of the activities of Central Social Welfare Board
11. Rashtriya Mahila Kosha for micro-credit facilities for channeling of loans through NGOs, women’s development corporation, cooperative societies etc.
12. Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of women.
Besides several significant bills are pending for passage which include women’s reservation bill and bill against domestic violence etc.
International Events/Instruments since 1975
- UN First World Conference on Women, Mexico – 1975
- Establishment of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) – 1979
- World Conference for the Decade for Women – Copenhagen, - 1980. (Second World Conference)
- Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women – 1985. (Third World Conference)
- World Conference on Education For All, Jomtien, 1990
- World Summit for Children, New York – 1992
- International Conference on Nutrition, Rome – 1992
- UN Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro – 1992
- Signing of the Convention of the Child 1992
- The World Conference on Human Rights – Vienna – 1993
- International Conference on Population and Development, (IPCD) Cairo – 1994
- International Conference on Primary Health Care
- International Year of the Family
- Geneva Declaration for Rural Women
- Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women
- World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen – 1995
- UN Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing – 1995
The government follows all the ILO conventions for removing gender discrimination in wages, working hours, child labour and work environment etc., passed during the last three quarter of the century.
Contribution of NGOs in mobilizing and forming women’s groups for economic, social and political empowerment needs to be documented. Their role in bringing about changes in the criminal and civil legal system is monumental. Several changes in the legal system have brought about enormous change in the legal status of Indian women. These include:
- Hindu Marriage Act 1955
- Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act 1966
- Hindu Succession Act 1956 and Hindu Succession Amendment Bill 2000
- Dowry Prohibition Act 1961
- Prevention of Sati Act 1987
- Prevention of Misuse (of sex determination) Act 1994
- Sexual Harassment of Women at their Work Place Prevention Bill 2000
- Cruelty Against Women’s Act 1983 with the proposal of NCW for Domestic Violence to Women Prevention Bill
- Placement of Rape under section 375 of Indian penal code with provision for jail term for a minimum of ten years with a proposal for capital punishment
- Immoral Traffic Prevention Act 1986
To conclude the last quarter of a century has seen tremendous changes in education of women, in their health and in political participation, in laws governing them as well as in awareness of their rights. The impact of these changes are not glaringly visible yet in data on work participation rates or large-scale entry of women in modern sector employment or in decision making at high levels. However, rapidly growing enrolment and retention of women in school closing the gender gap, women having higher longevity of life than men, lowering of fertility rates and rapid extension in entry of women in local level elected bodies show steady and sure advancement of women following hand in hand with economic development of the country. With increase in rate of growth of the economy and in the above mentioned development/empowerment indicators for women, the 21st century is poised to be women’s century. Whether economic development leads to women’s development and empowerment or vice versa we do not know. But women’s development and empowerment through education, change in their economic, social and political status will ensure sustainable development that we are sure off.
Forty years ago, I analyzed data# and trends in women’s work participation, education and economic development in several articles published in Economic and Political Weekly. In all of them I had forecast a decline in women’s work participation rates with economic development, education and urbanization. All these forecasts have proved wrong by the subsequent developments and awareness on the role of women in development; the need for resource allocation for education, training and empowerment of women for sustainable development. My friend Ester Boserup@ who was the leader in bringing out the significance of economic role of women in traditional societies (in 1970) was amazed (in 1994 when I last spoke to her) at the rapid progress in empowerment of women and their centralization in development dialogue and resource allocation all over the world. We all change our thinking with developments as they occur.
