Gender Inequality and its Implications on Education and Health

Over the decades, the child sex ratio (CSR) is found to be declining in India. Declining CSR has been one of the biggest social problems in India; the problem is assumed to be deep-rooted because economic growth or social progress fails to correct the adverse CSR in India. The proposed research tries to evaluate the impact of women's agency along with some affirmative actions (toward empowering women) on CSR in India. The role of women's agency is assumed to be significant toward correcting the adverse CSR. However, it is confined to two variables like female literacy rate (FLR) and female work force participation rate (FWFPR). Women agency should take into account women's ability to make effective choices and to transform those choices into desired outcomes. Therefore, in order to explore the effect of some affirmative actions in explaining the variations of CSR across the states in India, three popular schemes, namely, Self Help Group (SHG), Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK), and Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY), are used in the present analysis.

Pooled regression shows that FWFPR has a positive impact on CSR but FLR has a nonlinear relationship with the CSR. It is found that the SHG has positive but the KSY has negative effect on CSR; the other variable like RMK does not play any significant role toward variations of CSR. States showing higher concentration of ST population are found to be conducive to favorable CSR compared to SC population. Per capita net state domestic product (PCNSDP) has a similar effect like FLR. This study also finds significant discriminating role (against female child) of major states compared to minor states and UTs. Therefore, the role of women's agency toward improving CSR needs to be highlighted more profoundly in Indian context.

Despite the rapid progress and developments in education and health all over the world, gender inequality is still an important issue in many parts of the world. Girls benefit less from education opportunities than boys, and it causes gender inequality. The same situation is also valid for health. While gender inequality is still an issue even in developed countries, it is more serious in the least developed and developing countries. Therefore, there is a need to reduce gender inequality through government intervention. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of government's health and education expenditures on gender inequality in the least developed and developing countries with panel data analysis. The study covers 24 countries for the 2010–2017 period. As a result of the analysis, it has been observed that the government's health expenditures reduce gender inequality, while education expenditures increase gender inequality. This finding indicates that education expenditures of governments do not reach girls in the least developed and developing countries. However, GDP per capita is the most important factor in reducing gender inequality.

Presently gender inequality and women's nutrition are the most concerning area of any development policy. Recent empirical evidence emphasizes that gender inequality decreases over time and the on the other hand percentage of overweight (OW) and obesity for women, especially in developing countries, increases over time. However, the relationship between these two phenomena (gender inequality and obesity) has rarely been investigated. Using time series yearly data (1990–2016) from the Nutrition Landscape Information Systems (NLiS) database of World Health Organisation (WHO) for India, we apply standard time series analysis including break test, stationarity test, cointegration test, and vector error correction model (VECM) to estimate the relationship between gender inequalities and percentage of females OW and obese. Our results show that there is a long-run relationship between these variables. Moreover, we also find that a decrease in gender inequality influences the increase in the number of females under OW and obese. In conclusion, the findings of this study reveal that, while elevating the position of women in society may be an important step toward combating the epidemic of OW and obesity, strategies must also tackle unhealthy habits that promote obesity.

This chapter tries to capture the disparity in expenditure on primary education based on gender among the religious groups (Hindu, Muslim, and Christian) in rural India. The gender gap in education expenditure for a certain demographic group is calculated using the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition approach. Further, we tried to identify the various household-related factors which might influence the decision of spending on a child's education. We used the 75th-level National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) unit-level dataset of July 2017 to June 2018 (one academic year) to obtain data on education expenditure and other household factors which play a manifesting role in the gender gap in expenditure on education. Our finding suggests that the total differential (log mean boys education expenditure-log mean girls education expenditure) is positive among all religious groups signifying the gender bias in education expenditure. We also found that the magnitude of the “Unexplained Effect” component is higher compared to the “Explained Effect” component signifying that the treatment of characteristics by students differs by their sex at elementary education. Household size and if household members are employed on a casual basis, then their expenditure on education falls on the other hand income of the household, a household with computer availability and household member engaged in regular wage/salary earning plays a positive role in expenditure on primary education in rural India.

India depicts the picture of severe social stringencies keeping girls away from attending school education due to the harsh reality of early child marriage and denial of aspirations of girl students in Indian society. The gender disparity in school educational attainment is evident as the figures of girls' enrollment in comparison to boys' enrollment at higher secondary stage of education in India always turn lower. In this context, measurement of technical efficiency (TE) is important because existence of technical inefficiency implies that one cannot produce maximum amount of output, given the resources, which can be interpreted as the penalty that the system is paying, and there is also the need to find out the relation between TE and gender inequality. The chapter contributes to the literature by (i) in the first stage estimating output-oriented TE of Indian higher secondary education for the period 2010–2011 to 2015–2016, using nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis, for general category states and (ii) in the second stage, using the estimated TE scores from the first stage, and the regression analysis establishing the positive impact of the girls' enrollment relative to boys' on the resulting TE and hence the positive role of gender equality in enrollment on enhancing TE. The favorable role of (1) “government expenditures on education (as a ratio to aggregate expenditure for the state),” “proportion of para teachers” and the adverse role of (2) “percentage of schools without girl's toilet” and “percentage of schools without building,” in determining TE of Indian higher secondary education are evident.

Gender studies have become an important area of study in recent times. It is being accorded an important place in the curriculum, both at the school and university levels. The many misconceptions that exist regarding the term “gender” need to be addressed, the most common being that gender has solely to do with women and their issues only. The basic important idea that gender studies is inclusive of female, male, and third gender and their issues isn't understood nor made aware to many. The role of education has become all the more important so that we are able to break the prevalent societal stereotypes and address the existing gender inequality. This chapter attempts to present various feminist theories that have contributed to the understanding of gender. The important role of the schools and in particular the textbooks in socializing and building learners' understanding of the sociopolitical contexts cannot be negated. Hence, the chapter will conclude by analyzing how gender content and issues are experienced and get represented in the school curriculum and the textbooks. Many researchers have emphasized the need for gender inclusion to achieve holistic and sustainable development goals. This is important because only with the achievement of social equality can we work toward economic equality.

Gender inequality is one of the most concerning issues for a developing country like India. Gender inequality has many dimensions which are intricately related to the socioeconomic structure of the country. The chapter highlights two dominant factors leading to gender inequality in the country – education and employment. Empirical evidence suggests that the gross enrollment of females decreases from the upper primary level of schooling onwards. Moreover, higher education for women has not translated to higher employment post liberalization. India continues to be a country with one of the poorest female work participation ratios. Employment along with education is a key tool to improve the condition of women in our society. The chapter concludes that an integrated approach linking education of women and employment is essential for the reduction of gender inequality.

Human development encompasses not only income, other factors of life such as education and health are equally important. Investments in education and health positively impact the development of any region. Therefore, development in general and human development in particular of a region highlights not only the application of income but also the (actual) living conditions of people. It should also focus on the living conditions of women. This can somehow be assessed by looking at the Gender Development Index (GDI), introduced by the UNDP in 1995 as the intital Human Development Index (HDI) did not address gender-related issues. The present study thus tries to examine gender inequality in terms of education and health in the North Bengal region as it can have adverse effects on the overall development in the region. The study relies on the available secondary data on education and health. It is imperative that we realize the need to narrow the gender gap for development to be inclusive as investing in women's education and health can contribute to holistic economic growth and development.

The early childhood years are a period of great opportunity but are also of great vulnerability. Responsive caring is important for children to live, learn, grow, and develop to their full potential. Being healthy at childhood is the crucial requirement for a nation to be healthy throughout. But children in developing countries are earmarked to be vulnerable to the adverse socioeconomic conditions. Without the availability of proper nutritional diet and immunization, children remain underweight, stunted, and wasted. In order to capture their condition, analyzing their health status is inevitable. Further, since discrimination based on gender in every sphere of life be it at home or outside is quite evident in a patriarchal nation like India, therefore, an analysis of the child health based on their gender gains momentum. Thus, the present study analyzes the status of child health in West Bengal from a multidimensional perspective and disaggregates it on the basis of their gender in order to catch the effect of discrimination persisting in society. In order to do so, we have considered the NFHS unit level data of the latest two rounds. The present study contributes to the existing literature from methodological perspective as well as by formulating a child deprivation index using a multidimensional approach. Together with that, we have unearthed the factors influencing the health status of the children based on their gender.

The issue of dropout looms large in the context of school education in India despite various flagship programs that have been initiated in school education. According to U-DISE report (2019–2020), girls drop out more than boys at the upper primary level. An analysis of the dropout problem demands probing deeper into intrahousehold dynamics that involves bargaining at the household level on investment decision. These decisions are often influenced by the social context in which the girl child in the family faces discrimination which gets reflected in terms of dropout of girl children. Apart from the issue of gender, birth order also determines which child is more likely to drop out. Using NSSO data (2017–2018), we observe that not all children of a household are equally susceptible to the dropout problem. Moreover, the eldest sibling is found to be more susceptible to the dropout problem and dropout rate goes down with the other younger siblings in the same household. First-born girl children drop out more than their male counterparts showing gender bias. The chapter concludes that the factors pushing a child to drop out become more effective for the eldest sibling. The major reason is the family structure of India as the eldest sibling is expected to be more responsible and look after other younger siblings. Consequently, a certain number of the younger siblings try to follow the elder siblings and discontinue going to school.

Using 13 major Indian state-level data of the rural sector, covering the period 2004–2005 to 2011–2012 and by estimating a simultaneous-panel model employing Baltagi's Instrumental-Variable EC2SLS estimation method, this chapter contributes to the literature by establishing: (i) the simultaneous dependence between female labor force participation rate (FLFPR) and female health status as measured by female life expectancy (FLE), (ii) the negative impact of outdoor air pollution as measured by prevalence of SPM, SO₂, and NO₂ on FLE, and (iii) the interaction among different demographic factors in determining both FLFPR and FLE. The interaction effect of air pollution with (i) economic growth and (ii) poverty (POV) on FLE is negative implying that the partial effect of a change in growth (POV) depends on air pollution level. Thus reduction in air pollution will increase FLE and hence FLFPR, as the simultaneous positive dependence between FLFPR and FLE is supported. The interaction effect of women's political power and education on rural FLFPR is significant and nonlinear with positive marginal effect. Thus the partial effect of a change in women's political power on FLFPR will in turn depend on level of education and vice versa. The positive impact of other demographic factors like (i) education, (ii) female leader, (iii) POV, and (iv) urbanization on FLFPR and (a) education, (b) female household head, (c) female leader, (d) sex ratio, and (e) growth on FLE are apparent. However, the household size significantly and negatively affects FLFPR.

Emerging Economies (EEs) are characterized by sustained growth performance, but they suffer from inequality as well, especially the Gender Inequality. Literature points out a number of gender norms which play a significant role in aggravating the gender disparity. The chapter chooses a panel of 25 EEs for the period of 2007–2020 to investigate how gender norms can affect the female labor force participation (FLFP) and development relationship. Results suggest that EEs are in a stage of development where even if countries are growing at a reasonable rate, FLFP is falling. Further investigation reveals that skewed sex ratio can dampen the impact of development, whereas secondary school enrollment and legislation to protect women from sexual harassment in the workplace may foster the effect of development. Thus, policies to encourage parents to invest more on the girl child and providing legal support to women at the workplace can be effective policies to reduce gender inequality.

Humanity experiences challenges caused by gender inequality which further obstructs achievement of global sustainable development. Considering gender equality as human equality, this chapter emphasizes women empowerment's role in supporting global sustainable development. Based on literature review, this chapter aims to examine women empowerment's role in and contribution to UN SDGs (sustainable development goals). This chapter underlines that the gender inequality hinders and obstructs global sustainable development and achievement of SDGs. Furthermore, this chapter examines causes of gender inequality as they need to be identified and eliminated to achieve global sustainable development. Women empowerment plays a significant role in solving gender inequality related problems (e.g., health problems, education inequality, discrimination, crime, violence). Women empowerment achieved through supported gender equality can act as a multiplier factor in achieving synergy creation and influencing a sustainable future. This chapter highlights the influence of women empowerment and gender equality on all three pillars of sustainability. Furthermore, this chapter underlines the importance of women empowerment in all industries and politics for addressing the gender inequality problems. This chapter provides recommendations on how to enhance women empowerment to support achievement of all SDGs. Women empowerment based sustainable development policies can influence achievement of the SDGs. This chapter is expected to be useful to the academics and policymakers focusing on achievement of SDGs, sustainability, and sustainable development.

Women Empowerment means boosting the social, economic, political, and legal strength of women to secure equal right and make them confident to claim their rights. India has focused on women's empowerment to reduce domestic abuse and gender violence in recent decades. The study analyzes the relationship between women's empowerment and gender-based violence, employing a non-linear regression model using the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 5, 2019–20 data. In the present study gender-based violence is measured on the basis of spousal violence and women's empowerment is represented by women who are currently married and usually take part in three household decisions, women who worked in the past year and were paid in cash, women who own a house or land (alone or with others), women who use their own bank or savings account, and women who use their own cell phone for each state. Analysis of the result shows a link between women's empowerment and gender-based violence and a large disparity among states.

We assessed the differential effects of social expenditures on males and females by establishing the impact of public expenditures on education and health on gender parity in primary and secondary enrollment and on gender parity in life expectancy for Nigeria given age dependency ratio, annual population growth rate, and GDP per capita growth rate. We found that increased social spending on health and education increased female education enrollment which was hitherto lower than male enrollment. Again, increased social expenditure on health and education improved male life expectancy which was hitherto lower than female life expectancy. We established the importance of increased social expenditure on health and education; gender budgeting and gender-sensitive budgets; and implementation of inclusive growth policies in engendering gender parity in Nigeria.

Countries across the world have committed to the attainment of Agenda 2030 by implementing policies to achieve all the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Development experience during the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) suggests that ensuring equity is one of the basic pillars required to achieve SDGs. Unfortunately, gender is a major fault line across which development gets unequally distributed. While SDG 5 enshrines the need for achieving gender equality, its global progress has been staggered and saw a further decline during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gender equality is poorly integrated with all the SDGs as only 104 out of 246 SDG indicators identify gender-based issues. There continues to remain a widespread data gap even for the goals which have gender-related indicators as merely 35 out of the 104 gender-related indicators (9 of the 17 SDGs) had robust data systems and methodologies in place until recently. Consequently, countries with entrenched patriarchal and unequal societies have consistently lagged in the attainment of gender related SDGs and have struggled to mainstream gender.

This chapter argues that gender data is the foundation for ensuring gender equality and promoting evidence-based policymaking. It therefore makes a case for mainstreaming gender-related indicators in SDGs 6, 7, 9, 12, 14, 15, and 17 along with expanding the gendered understanding of people-related goals in the areas of education, health, and employment. Moreover, it reiterates the need for gender data collection to move beyond the binary construct of male and female to integrate an intersectional lens.

Failure in environment and urbanization policies can cause many challenges (e.g., widespread of informal settlements which generally lack proper infrastructure and sanitation) on human beings affecting their well-being and welfare adversely fostering gender inequality and gender inequality caused problems globally. Furthermore, environmental degradation caused epidemics due to animal-to-human zoonosis can further challenge health and well-being. Women are relatively more vulnerable and experience relatively more difficulties compared to men due to environmental degradation, urbanization problems, and informal settlements having poor infrastructure. Sustainable environment and urbanization policies and their integrated thinking with health policies are vital to enhance gender equality. Based on the literature review, this chapter aims to examine the role of environment and urbanization policies in enhancing gender equality and women empowerment. Furthermore, this chapter investigates causes and consequences of failure in environment and urbanization policies in addressing gender equality and women empowerment. This chapter emphasizes impacts of environment and urbanization policies on health especially on women health and well-being. This chapter further highlights the role of gender equality in achieving healthy and sustainable environment and urbanization policies. Furthermore, this chapter provides recommendations on how to enhance environment and urbanization policies so that they can further support gender equality and women empowerment effectively.

Feminist contributions to debates on gender, poverty, and social justice have deepened our understanding of the ways gender as a structuring principle of social life and an embedded hierarchy of values produces different concepts and experience of poverty as well as adds new meaning to the idea of “human flourishing.” Gender inequality remains a major barrier to human development; the disadvantages facing women and girls are a major source of inequality; since women and girls are discriminated against in health, education, political representation, and labor market, which has negative repercussions for development of their capabilities and their freedom of choice, remaining far away from social justice (Nussbaum, 1995). Recent statistics show just how far societies are from achieving gender equality. In the above backdrop, the chapter focuses on the position and status of women in India in the realm of gender equality, poverty reduction, and social justice as well as the public actions viewed from India's perspectives. At the same time it highlights the importance of global actions in an endeavor to establish gender equality, breaking the chain of poverty trap and establishing social justice along with their fallouts in the subsequent years.

Digital media platforms on one hand are tools of communication. On the other hand, it is a site where narratives are shared among members of various communities. Thus providing a space to create identities and educate audiences about behaviors toward “them” from “us.” This chapter will highlight how the narratives of Aboriginal Australian women discriminatory issues are conveyed and discussed on Twitter. In attempting so, this chapter will highlight whether the digital space has contributed to equality in the society or is it attempting to reassert the existing hegemonic discourses and status in the Australian Community. Accordingly, this research suggests policies that could help create emancipatory pedagogy.

The materialization and continuation of the pandemic have a big toll on everyone's life. Female workers specifically from the unorganized sector faced diversified financial crises during the pandemic. These households went through multiple changes in terms of expenditure, loan burden, job uncertainty, etc. A selected sample of 149 has been considered to understand the changes that had taken place in terms of health, expenditure, and other associated evolved behavior in lockdown and post-lockdown phase in a selected rural-based area of West Bengal. By applying different statistical tools like regression, f-test, and t-test, various influencing factors for household expenditure along with the changes in savings behavior have been observed in the chapter. A sudden crisis like COVID-19 has made the selected respondents responsive toward vivid positive lifestyle and attitude changes like financial literacy, savings, crisis management, and so on.

The COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to causing a very serious economic crisis, has slowed the path taken toward achieving gender equality. For example, the closure of third sector activities by governments has meant the loss of many jobs in this female-dominated sector (ILO, 2020; UN, 2020) slowing and hindering the professional careers of many women (Carli, 2020).

The objective of this work is to identify gender differences by analyzing the levels of sustainable development achieved by Italian regions. The Italian case in fact is very peculiar due to its historical territorial gap between the regions of the North (among the most developed) and those of the Center-South, which still show high gender inequalities. A Gender Sustainable Development Index (GSDI) will be constructed through the use of 50 indicators from the Benessere Equo e Sostenibile survey of Istat. The technique used is the stacking method (Landi, Ivaldi, & Testi, 2017; Norman, 2010), which was chosen for its high replicability of results. The results show that only 40% of Italian regions have higher levels of female sustainable development than male sustainable development. Moreover, the regions with the worst levels of both female and male sustainable development are located in the Center-South of the country, confirming the strong territorial gap present within the Italian Peninsula.

Crime against women is an entrenched issue in India in general and its states in particular. The existing literature unveils so many socioeconomic factors responsible behind such a social curse. Economic disparities in terms of income have also been identified as one of the crucial factors in determining the crime rates in some countries of the world. The present study seeks to examine whether income inequality has any sort of associations with the crime against women in the states of India. The study has observed rising trends of crime rates and per capita incomes across the states in India for the period 2000–2019 and crime rates in the states are positively and significantly correlated with rising inequality in income. There, thus, needs the policies related to reduction of crime against women and reduction of income inequality. The study thus suggests the interventions of the legislative system, governments' tax policies toward the rich persons, public awareness programs, etc. to reduce violence against women.

Gender inequalities and climate change are global problems that concern the whole world. These two basic questions also have intersections with each other. Disruptions in natural life, usually due to human activities, lead to climate change over time. Climate change, on the other hand, deepens the already existing gender inequalities. Problems such as water scarcity, natural disasters, lack of access to clean water, and energy shortages are gender-responsive issues that affect women and men in different ways. All these factors, as supported in the literature, cause women to be in an even more disadvantageous position against climate change. One of the policy tools of states in the face of this problem is fiscal solutions. As a fiscal policy tool, government budgets can be used to eliminate the negative effects of climate change on women. This is called gender responsive climate budgeting (GRCB) in the literature. In order to apply GRCB, firstly sex-disaggregated data are required. In addition, institutional structures should be strengthened and strategic plans should be designed in a way that establishes the link between gender and climate change. This process should be carried out in a multistakeholder manner and the resources allocated for the financing of the problems should gain a gender-responsive structure.