Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 20 August 2013

Where have all the women gone?

Have women fared better than men, and girls better than boys in the last decade or so? In the din over a dramatic reduction in poverty in the period 2009/10-2011/12 that is unlikely to die down, deep questions about the discrimination and deprivation that women face from the womb to the rest of their lives are either glossed over or, worse, just ignored.

The Sen norm

Amartya Sen sought to capture the cumulative impact of multiple forms of deprivation that women face over their lives in an intuitively appealing measure of “missing women.”
It aims to capture women’s adversity in mortality and to better understand the quantitative difference between (1) the actual number of women, and (2) the number we expect to see in the absence of a significant bias against women in terms of food, and health care.
First, the difference between the sex ratio norm of women per 1,000 males and actual sex ratio is computed. Second, multiplying it by the number of males, the number of missing women is obtained.
This is an absolute measure. A relative measure requires division of missing women by surviving women. In the same way, absolute and relative estimates of missing girls are computed.
Dr. Sen’s original estimate of missing women in India in the 1980s was 37 million in a global total of more than 100 million missing women.
Another estimate is lower for India (23 million) in a total of 60 million in selected countries, based on the western demographic experience.
More recent estimates point to higher numbers of missing women. The important point, however, is not that the differences are large but the fact that “gender bias in mortality takes an astonishingly high toll” .
The sex ratio rose in India from 932.91 per 1,000 males in 2001 to 940.27 in 2011, implying a decadal growth of 0.70 per cent. Using the same norm that Dr. Sen used, our estimates of missing women rise from 46.35 million in 2001 to 49.73 million in 2011, an increase of 3.38 million.
The decadal increase was thus 7.30 per cent. As the number of missing women depends on the difference between the sex ratio norm and the actual multiplied by the number of men, a narrowing of the difference between these ratios was more than compensated for by the larger number of men. However, as a share of surviving women, there was a reduction — from 9.33 per cent in 2001 to 8.48 per cent — implying a decadal reduction of 9.17 per cent.

Rural and urban picture

Disaggregation into rural and urban missing women reveals an interesting picture. The sex ratio in the rural areas rose slightly, from 946 in 2001 to 947 in 2011.
The absolute number of missing women rose from 28.35 million to 31.30 million, an increase of 2.95 million. This implies a decadal increase of 10.40 per cent. However, the share of missing women declined from 7.9 per cent to 7.7 per cent, a decadal reduction of 2.53 per cent.
The sex ratio rose from 900 in the urban areas in 2001 to 926 in 2011, a decadal increase of 2.89 per cent. Yet the absolute number of missing women increased slightly — from 18 million to 18.42 million — a decadal increase of 2.33 per cent.
This is a fraction of the much larger increase in rural areas. However, the share of missing women declined — from 13.3 per cent to 10.20 per cent — a decadal reduction of 23.30 per cent.
This is considerably larger than the reduction in rural areas.
The sex ratio (girls/1,000 boys) in the age group <6 years fell from 927 in 2001 to 914 in 2011, a decadal reduction of 1.40 per cent.
The number of missing girls rose from 2.13 million in 2001 to 3.16 million in 2011, a decadal increase of 48.36 per cent.
The share of missing girls in surviving girls also rose from 2.7 per cent to 4.2 per cent, an increase of 55.55 per cent. Both absolute and relative measures of missing girls thus shot up over this decade. That the bias against girls rose so sharply is alarming.
In the rural areas, the sex ratio fell from 934 in 2001 to 919 in 2011, a decadal reduction of 1.60 per cent. The number of missing girls rose from 1.23 million to 2.07 million, a decadal increase of 68.29 per cent.
The share of missing girls rose from 2.0 per cent to 3.7 per cent, an increase of 85 per cent. As these rates are much larger than those at the all-India level, it follows that the already more pervasive sex-selective discrimination grew more rapidly in the rural areas.
The child sex ratio depends on two factors: sex ratio at birth and gender specific mortality rates among children ever born.
While preventing the abortion of female foetuses reduces the masculinity of the sex ratio at birth, it has the likely consequence that unwanted girl foetuses grow into girls who will be deprived of nutrition and health care.
These unwanted girls will then be more vulnerable to infant and child mortality.

Sex determination

Although foetal sex determination for selective abortion has been illegal in India since 1994 — the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994 however, became effective in 1996 — evidence suggests that the practice flourishes.
A Lancet study shows that a woman is substantially more likely to have a boy if she has a large number of girls.
For families who already have one child, the probability of the second child being a girl is 0.515 if the first child is a boy, but only 0.422 if the first child is a girl. On some assumptions — including the birth order effects — about 0.5 million sex selective abortions occurred annually.
Other more recent estimates are higher (about 0.62 million in 2011 or well over six million including abortions largely performed in non-registered institutions, by untrained people, and in unhygienic conditions). Unsafe abortions account for nearly eight per cent of maternal deaths.

PRIVATISATION

Privatisation has been an integral component of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) put through by the IMF/World Bank. In retrospect, it is amazing to see how the wave of privatisations swept across countries and continents. Data show that worldwide, between 1979 and end of 1999, more than 130 countries divested or turned over to private management/ownership of thousands of state-owned enterprises. In the countries of the former Soviet Union, it went under the rubric of “shock therapy” and state-owned enterprises were parcelled out and sold, often for a song.
Dogmatic attachment to privatisation abated by 2000. Prof. Joseph Stiglitz had raised the banner against privatisation in the late 1990s.
Later experience clearly suggested that privatisation was no panacea and a more balanced view was necessary. Currently, academic consensus is that there are positive outcomes of privatisation of firms operating in competitive markets.
Two decades of experience provide a deeper understanding of the complexities of implementing the policy, especially in infrastructure sectors such as electricity, railways or water and sewerage, and particularly in lower-income, less developed economies.
It is assessed that if privatisation has to succeed, it has to work within a supportive institutional policy framework and the socio-political challenges that result from the policy.
Unfortunately, many reform advocates, including those in India, seem to ignore these realities. The most recent experience regarding divesture of five per cent of Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) is a glaring instance which led to massive labour protests and Centre-State confrontation.
The protests ended with a face-saving formula, which in effect was not privatisation.
The advocates of privatisation charge that their critics have no alternatives to suggest. In many debates this TINA (there is no alternative) factor may clinch the argument. It is really not so.
The present book is a scholarly attempt to meet this charge by attempting alternatives. The book helps to conceptualise and evaluate what has become an important and widespread movement for better public services in the global South. It addresses questions of what constitutes alternatives to privatisation, what makes them successful (or not), and the lessons learned for future service delivery debates.
The primary aim is to cover delivery services in three sectors: health services, water/sanitation and power. As the book says, “The analysis is backed by a comprehensive examination of alternatives in over 50 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.” The authors have also identified new forms of public ownership and management as opposed to the earlier Manichaean view of State versus market.
Stridency over privatisation came about over concerns about efficiency, transparency, accountability, etc.
The rising tide of financialisation with efficient market hypothesis (EMH) at its heart led to dethroning the State and seeking private initiative for all services.
After the great economic crisis, these concepts have lost their tenability and all services have to be evaluated by common criteria.
These have been identified as: Equity, Participation, Efficiency, Quality, Accountability, Transparency, Sustainability, Solidarity, Public ethos and Transferability. Country experiences are assessed in the light of these criteria. The three regions (Asia, Africa and Latin America) are studies with reference to their experience in providing public services. Very interesting findings have been brought forth. For instance, Latin America was successful in thwarting water privatisation. But not the power sector, which is dominated by the private sector.
On Indian power sector, there are interesting observations.). The author record how “with traditionally strong left-wing political parties and social movements, it makes one wonder how the ADB and the World Bank unbundling models were carried forward beginning in 1995.” He takes the view that “independent regulator has been designed mainly to meet the requirements of a privatized system.”