Gender Inequality: A Comparison of India and USA

Abstract

Gender inequality refers to the differential ability of men and women to access society’s resources and to receive its privileges. Gender inequality is complicated, because every individual, categorized as either male or female, also falls somewhere within a matrix of domination that includes other dimensions like race/ethnicity, social class, age and sexuality. The paper makes an attempt to compare gender inequality in a developed (USA) and developing (India) country on dimensions such as education, health, labour force participation and politics based on Gender Data Portal of World Bank for the period 2007–2017. In terms of Government Expenditure on Education, USA spends much more than India on education. The number of out of schoolchildren has decreased for India but has increased for USA from 2007 to 2013. Primary and Secondary School enrolment has also shown an increase in India while a decline in USA. Gender inequality continues to have a negative impact on many health outcomes of Indian women. USA women fare better than Indian women at all indicators studied. The paper argues that if economic growth was the only criterion for labour force participation, then there should not be disparity among LFPR of males and females in USA, but lower LFPR for females than males in USA reflects disparity among males and females. About 81.94% of females in India were self-employed in 2017 as compared to only 7.34% in USA. India and USA both fare poorly in political participation of women. The paper thus concludes that although India performs poorly across various socio-economic indicators as compared to USA, one can say that there is no perfect gender equality in any of these two countries.

Annexure

Definitions of Indicators Used

• 1. Government expenditure on education: General government expenditure on education (current, capital and transfers) is expressed as a percentage of GDP. It includes expenditure funded by transfers from international sources to government. General government usually refers to local, regional and central governments.

• 2. Children out of school, primary (Number in Lakhs): Children out of school are the number of primary-school-age children not enrolled in primary or secondary school.

• 3. School enrolment in primary (%): Gross enrollment ratio is the ratio of total enrollment, regardless of age, to the population of the age group that officially corresponds to the level of education shown. Primary education provides children with basic reading, writing and mathematics skills along with an elementary understanding of such subjects as history, geography, natural science, social science, art and music.

• 4. School enrolment in secondary (%): Gross enrollment ratio is the ratio of total enrollment, regardless of age, to the population of the age group that officially corresponds to the level of education shown. Secondary education completes the provision of basic education that began at the primary level and aims at laying the foundations for lifelong learning and human development, by offering more subject- or skill-oriented instruction using more specialized teachers.

• 5. Female teachers in educational institutions: Share of female academic staff in education.

• 6. Maternal death refers to the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes.

• 7. Employment is defined as persons of working age who were engaged in any activity to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit, whether at work during the reference period or not at work due to temporary absence from a job, or to working-time arrangement. The agriculture sector consists of activities in agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing, in accordance with division 1 (ISIC 2) or categories A-B (ISIC 3) or category A (ISIC 4). The industry sector consists of mining and quarrying, manufacturing, construction and public utilities (electricity, gas and water), in accordance with divisions 2–5 (ISIC 2) or categories C-F (ISIC 3) or categories B-F (ISIC 4). The services sector consists of wholesale and retail trade and restaurants and hotels; transport, storage and communications; financing, insurance, real estate and business services; and community, social and personal services, in accordance with divisions 6–9 (ISIC 2) or categories G-Q (ISIC 3) or categories G-U (ISIC 4).

• 8. Labour force participation rate is the proportion of the population ages 15 and older that is economically active: all people who supply labour for the production of goods and services during a specified period.

• 9. Wage and salaried workers (employees) are those workers who hold the type of jobs defined as ‘paid employment jobs’, where the incumbents hold explicit (written or oral) or implicit employment contracts that give them a basic remuneration that is not directly dependent upon the revenue of the unit for which they work.

• 10. Self-employed workers are those workers who, working on their own account or with one or a few partners or in cooperative, hold the type of jobs defined as a ‘self-employment jobs’, i.e. jobs where the remuneration is directly dependent upon the profits derived from the goods and services produced. Self-employed workers include four sub-categories of employers, own-account workers, members of producers’ cooperatives and contributing family workers.

• 11. Women in parliaments are the percentage of parliamentary seats in a single or lower chamber held by women.