India’s economic ambitions need better gender data, Pg8

Key Highlights:

• Women contribute only 18% to India's GDP, hindering the nation's goal of becoming a $30 trillion economy by 2047.
• Approximately 196 million employable women are not part of the workforce, despite an improved Female Labour Force Participation Rate of 41.7%.
• Uttar Pradesh launched India's first Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Index, tracking women's participation across five economic levers at the district level.
• The WEE Index highlights systemic barriers to women's access to finance and enterprise support, despite their high enrolment in skilling programs (over 50%).

Detailed Insights:

• India's existing indices often lack gender-disaggregated data, obscuring inequities and stalling necessary reforms for women's economic empowerment.
• The Uttar Pradesh transport sector example demonstrates how gender-specific data insights can prompt redesign of recruitment strategies and infrastructure improvements for women.
• Universalizing gender-disaggregated data requires integrating it into all departmental management information systems and building local governments' capacity to use it effectively.
• Effective gender budgeting involves applying a gender lens to every rupee spent across all sectors, not just confining it to finance departments or women's welfare schemes.
• States like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Telangana can leverage the WEE Index framework to translate economic goals into district-wise gender action plans.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Gender Budgeting: Analyzing budgets through a gender perspective to ensure equitable resource allocation.
• Gender-Disaggregated Data: Data separated by gender to reveal disparities and inform targeted interventions.
• Female Labour Force Participation Rate: Percentage of women working or actively seeking employment in the total workforce.