Bridging the GENDER GAP

Engaging women equally with men in all walks of life is necessary for a rapid and sustainable economic recovery from the financial slowdown and for prosperity. But India lags behind in empowering girls, finds Sudeshna Sen

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VER the past few months, the City of London, often called the global financial capital of the world, has come under attack from yet another unexpected quarter – never mindbankers bonuses and bank bailouts, the City has been hauled up by the UK's Equality and man Rights Commission for paying its women almost 80% less than it pays its men, even at the starting level. It led to a parliamentary committee enquiry, loads of tabloid press, and some serious soul-searching in a country where workplace and anti-discrimination rules are set in stone. It also gave rise to a new kind of viewpoint – academics like Charles Goodheart, professor Emeritus of Banking and Economics at LSE, told the government that more women at the top levels in decision-making would have helped to stop sending the world into a financial crisis. The theory gaining credence in the highest levels these days, never mind touchy-feely issues like how women and men react differently to risk – is that sheer lack of diversity and multiple views in board-rooms across the world, generated a 'groupthink.' Too much yang, not enough yin and the view from the top was very male, homogenous, and in this case, disastrously incorrect. It is, naturally, a hotly contested and debated theory. Women's issues always give rise to acrimonious debate. That's where the World Economic Forum's gender gap report, now in its fourth edition comes in. "We rank countries with a simple index measuring the existing gender gap, based on hard data from organisations like ILO and UN, without any cultural parameters," says Saadia Zahidi, associate director, constituents at WEF, and one of the architects of the gender gap reports. The reports make for somewhat gloomy reading. Ms Zahidi's estimates are, that to achieve gender parity across the world, it will take to the year 4000. And India's relative performance makes for even gloomier reading. In the 2009 report, among 134 countries, India ranks 114, a notch above North Korea and a notch below Jordan. Ranked on parameters economic empowerment, education attainment, health and survival and political empowerment, India trails every BRIC country and lags in the bottom of the league tables with neighbours like Pakistan. The only parameter India does well on, is political empowerment, thanks to its long history of women at the top of the political spectrum. Before you shake your head and turn the page, there's hope. There isn't that much correlation between the size and resources of an economy and its existing gender gap. Besides the Nordic countries clustered at the top of the table, South Africa makes the top 10, Phillipines, Lesotho, and even Latvia perform better than UK, France, and Spain, while the US scrapes in at number 31. The 2009 Gender Gap Report concludes that engaging women equally with men in all aspects of life is imperative for economically competitive and prosperous societies, and in particular, for a rapid and sustainable economic recovery from the financial crisis, integrating women and girls is imperative. It is, perhaps, no coincidence that Nordic countries routinely top global league tables on happiness, wellbeing, and non-GDP focused league tables.Says Maria Eitel, President of the Nike Foundation, which runs programmes for girls around the world." "Investing in adolescent girls not only has the power to break intergeneration poverty, but it also builds opportunity and prosperity for all. Adolescent girls 
    are India's greatest untapped 
    resource for future prosperity and growth." While India 
    may still be a long way from the 
    kind of corporate debate about 
    equal pay and working conditions that's raging in the City of London, women's welfare has increasingly moved out of the 'poverty and welfare,' category into mainstream economic concerns, just like infrastructure and so on. The fact that the growing power of women, in the workplace, as consumers, and as almost half of India's human capital resources is not something that India Inc can ignore. Adds Zahidi, "In four years, the India score has been showing improvement." From the health and survival parameter, to the economic empowerment and education parameter. Says Shumeet Banerjee, CEO of Booz and Company, "One of the biggest concerns in India is about skills. And yes, while the private sector has a role, but it also requires attention to basic social indicators – welfare of women, primary education." That, by itself, is a long way, baby. 
    We're no longer talking only about life expectancy, healthcare, or child mortality rates, the Indian woman is emerging as an economic force to reckon with. Chanda Kochhar, ICICI, believes that Indian girls just need to be given a level playing field, a mindset of equal opportunities, starting from the family, in education, and by corporates in the workplace to rise above the past. The success of the microfinance revolution, driven mostly by rural women, consistently awes global financial bigwigs and economists. 
    Recently, Ian Mulder, the Lord Mayor of the City of London, after his visit to a microfinance programme in India, said that the micro finance model "deserves replication not only in India, but in the UK as well." Zahidi admits that it's still very hard to directly and quantitatively prove that reducing the gender gap delivers directly to say, company bottomlines. But, as she points out, the biggest opportunities for closing gender gaps happen during times of flux, and global upheaval. "The world wars pushed huge numbers of women into industry and the workplace in the west, for instance. In times of turmoil, there's also opportunity." Go grab it, girls. 
    with inputs from World Economic Forum 
    Social issues have never taken up so much corporate and CEO attention since the world wars. Income inequalities, public health, labour unrest, climate change, poverty, ethics, values, the role of business … all that kind of thing. 
    Suddenly, corporate social responsibility has come to acquire a brand new meaning. It's not about the Gates Foundation any more, it's about bankers bonuses. It's about climate change, green technology, social justice. Developmental and behavioural economics is edging out the discredited mathematical and pure market economics. 
    This post-modern, socially sensitive world order is something that global business is going to have to learn to live with, for a long while to come. We're all in it together, is no longer an ideology, but a brutal market truth. If the global recession proved that global finance is intricately interlinked, swine flu proved that pandemics don't, despite masks and quarantines, respect borders either. 
    Manmohan Singh and Madame Gandhi can take a few bows — their 'inclusive growth' mantra has now gone completely global – it's not just good politics, it's the key to global economic survival. Here's just a sample of the 'new' economic insights that are cropping up all over the place. The emerging market consumer, in China, India, Russia, with her high savings rates and increasing purchasing power will come to the rescue of global consumer companies even as their core consumers struggle with huge debts. And this has to be balanced without wiping out the world's environment. Sustainable consumption is the buzzword. 
    The prosperity and growth of even marginal and poor nations isn't just a matter for charity or social justice, it's an imperative if wealthy nations want to maintain their own populations in comfort. 
    In India, what we call youth power, and the rest of the world calls a demographic dividend is the buzzword. But there's a caveat to demographic dividends —- young people need food, education, training, housing, jobs, skills. They have aspirations, needs, demands. And when there are so many of them around, you can't just let them hang around the edges of economic activity getting bored and restive. Over the next two days, some seriously important international and domestic business bigwigs are going into a huddle in Delhi at the World Economic Forum India Summit. And guess what? Almost half the time, they're going to be discussing those old, boring, social sector things like women, children, affordable housing, public health and so on. To mix a few metaphors, you can take society out of mathematical business models, but you can't take business out of society. We look at some of the social issues in the spotlight, women, and health.