How women are key to transforming India The roots of one of the most significant public policy failures in India can be traced to the lack of gender rights within families

The proposed law that seeks to guarantee most Indian households access to cheap food may also radically transform the power balance in Indian families. The National Food Security Bill proposes to recognize the woman of the house as the head of the family. The ration card will be made in her name.
Biraj Patnaik, principal adviser to the commissioners of the Supreme Court in the right to food case, told me the proposal to make the woman the head of the household “is the first legitimate recognition by the Indian State of the (more than) equal contribution of women to the household. This also would go a long way in ensuring the entitlements of such households and single women in India, who have been traditionally left out of many government schemes”.

The divide: Economists have explained why female labour participation rates are low in India, compared to other Asian countries.

The politics of family budgets can be described in a simple way: Men control money, which can be used in myriad ways, while women control food, which is essentially used to feed family members. Women would perhaps use food better than men use money, in ways that improve family welfare in the long run.“This step is far more progressive than transferring cash into a woman’s account directly, simply because food is less fungible than cash. If simply transferring cash in a woman’s account was enough, surely, women would have greater control over their wages. The same Bill has a direct cash transfer programme for pregnant and nursing mothers. This is also a unique experiment that is being piloted across the country. It remains to be seen what proportion of this cash is used for women’s health and nutritional needs,” Patnaik also told me.
There are several global studies that show how women get a terrible deal in India. There is ample proof in our homes, our streets, our hospitals, our newspapers. The oppression of women is a problem in terms of human rights. But it holds back the Indian economy as well.
Here are three reasons why India needs feminist economics—to attack the endemic problem of malnutrition, as a booster of economic growth and as a factor in enriching our policy choices.
First, take a look at the malnutrition problem. It is well known that the splendid economic growth we have seen over the past two decades has raised living standards across India. But higher incomes have not led to better nutrition. The problem is not just lack of money. Malnutrition is rampant across income categories, and is linked to a host of social reasons as well. For example, caste rules have been an obstacle to the spread of balanced diets.
Yet, one of the most important causes of malnutrition among children is that pregnant and lactating women do not get adequate nutrition, affecting the development of their children. A World Bank study identifies a small “window of opportunity” to improve nutrition, from pre-pregnancy till the child is about two years of age.
The roots of one of the most significant public policy failures in India can thus be traced to the lack of gender rights within families.
Now consider a second issue. The proportion of men in the labour force is most often higher than the proportion of women. Some of this is because women need to take time off to give birth and nurse babies. But female labour participation rates—or the percentage of women in the working age group who have jobs—are still low in India compared to many other Asian countries. Less than half of rural females and a fifth of urban females are in the workforce.
Economists have pointed out several reasons why there are too few women in the labour force—from lack of employment options outside the home to the inadequate access to household gadgets that would free women from the traditional chores. Some researchers also suggest that there are now fewer women in the workforce since the 1980s because more of them are staying back in school. Another possibility is that rising incomes have meant households have less need for a second income, especially from casual female labour.
There is ample research that shows that having more women in the workforce will boost growth. The Economist reported in 2007 that higher employment of women in developed countries has added more to global growth in recent decades than China has. One can debate the details, but there can be no doubt that more working women can help economic growth.
Finally, here is the third reason why women empowerment can transform India. Massachusetts Institute of Technology economists Esther Duflo and Raghabendra Chattopadhyay showed in a 2004 research paper, based on their comparison of decisions made by village panchayats headed by men and women in Rajasthan and West Bengal, that policy decisions are different depending on the gender of the village head.
The two economists show that women leaders take decisions that are more attuned to the needs of their gender, such as drinking water and roads in West Bengal and drinking water in Rajasthan. They invest less in areas that men are keen on: education in West Bengal and roads in Rajasthan. So while it is not true that women policymakers in villages always take the right decisions, there is reason to believe that a better gender balance in our governance institutions will lead to a better mix of policies.
In a more recent paper, Duflo has argued that while development and gender rights are expected to support each other, the links are quite weak in reality. Development alone does not further the cause of gender rights adequately enough, and “continuous policy commitment to equality for its own sake may be needed to bring about equality between men and women”.
There is little reason to disagree with that statement.