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Over the last four decades – the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s – the share of manufacturing in gross domestic product (at current prices) in India has stagnated, whereas the share of services (construction excluded) has increased significantly. The relatively mediocre growth performance of the manufacturing sector as compared to the services sector in India has emerged as a matter of concern. There has been growing recognition in policymaking circles and academia that India needs accelerated growth in the manufacturing industry in the next few decades, so that India's economic growth is led by manufacturing rather than services. In this paper, a comparative analysis of the growth in total factor productivity (TFP) of formal and informal segments of 10 groups of Indian manufacturing industries is undertaken, which is calculated based on KLEMS data obtained from National Accounts Statistics (NAS), published annually by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) of India. The period covered for the analysis of TFP growth is 1980–1981 to 2019–2020, which is broken into four sub-periods. Year wise total factor productivity growth (TFPG) of different industries for the sample period shows a fluctuating growth rate, which includes both positive and negative trends. Decade wise growth and overall TFPG of the different industries also indicate an oscillating pattern, that is, a mix of positive and negative TFPG. The minimum overall TFPG is observed in the coke, refined petroleum products and nuclear fuel industries, and the maximum in electrical and optical equipment for the period 1981–2020.

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.

The assertions of the government that poverty eradication and social development generally are the main challenges and that it is fully committed to address these issues have continued over time. But how genuine this claim is a matter of great concern. So, this chapter may be an attempt to analyze patterns in social sector expenditure on education (SSEE) and its impact on Human Development Index (HDI) among different states in India. The combined social sector expenditures (SSE) of Centre and States, which provide the best picture of India’s commitment towards the social sector in education, may be assessed. There are diverse ways of inspecting the trends in expenditures. Firstly, to look at SSE as a proportion of gross state domestic product (GSDP), secondly is to calculate SSE as percentage of aggregate budget expenditure, thirdly is to look at the real per capita expenditure (PCE) (at constant prices) for the social sector in the case of the states. This chapter looks at the trends in SSEE, considering all the alternative ways and the impact of SSEE on HDI. The result of the study shows that there is a positive relationship between SSEE and HDI. SSEE may lead to increases in gross enrolment ratio (GER) and literacy rate (LR). An increase in GER and LR may help in increasing the HDI.

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.

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.

For the prosperity of both gender and for social justice, independence and empowerment of women is essential. Empowerment of women not only ensures her personal or household welfare but also spreads positivity throughout the community. This generation of positive externality by empowering women has actually attracted attention worldwide toward exploring the concept of women empowerment as well as analyzing their status. The present research focuses on comparative analysis of the status of women empowerment among the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries and side by side explores its relationship with the various macro-indicators related to growth and development. This study reveals that Maldives and Sri Lanka had a relatively better status of women empowerment as compared to other SAARC countries. Further, based on the panel data analysis, the authors have found that urbanization and globalization have a significant impact on women empowerment. Thus, this holistic approach of measuring women empowerment from a multidimensional perspective and detecting the influencing factors is inevitable for enhancing the status of women at the global level.