Tag Search: “gender”

Banning commercial surrogacy in India

In an attempt to protect the welfare of surrogate mothers, the Indian government has proposed to introduce legislation that will ban commercial surrogacy in the country. In this article, Ajit Karnik, ...

  • Perspectives

Why are older women missing in India? The age profile of bargaining power and poverty

The ratio of women to men is particularly low in India relative to developed countries. It has recently been argued that close to half of these ‘missing’ women are of post-reproductive ages. What dri...

  • Articles

Surrogacy bill: Boon or ban(e)?

The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 proposes a complete ban on commercial surrogacy and restrictions on altruistic surrogacy. In this article, Maitreesh Ghatak, Professor of Economics, London School...

  • Perspectives

The missing men

Studies on skewed sex ratios in India typically focus on female deficits attributed to factors such as gender discrimination. This column finds that regions covering over 200 million people in India ...

  • Articles

Courting women's votes: What does this mean for women?

In the recent state assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, political parties targeted women voters with specific handouts and proposed policies such as alcohol bans. This column contends that while the in...

  • Articles

Access to credit and female labour supply in India

While microfinance is believed to have the potential to increase female labour force participation, short-term experimental evaluations of microfinance have not found significant economic benefits for...

  • IGC Research on India

Women and the Indian job market: Glass ceiling or sticky floor?

The gender wage gap among regular wage and salaried workers in India was 49% in 2009-10. This column finds the bulk of the gap is due to discrimination against women in the job market, rather than di...

  • Articles

Maternal mortality and gender prejudice

While maternal mortality has fallen sharply in the last decade, it remains unnecessarily high at about 800 deaths a day worldwide. Moreover, there is enormous variation in levels and rates of decline ...

  • Articles

Bihar's alcohol ban: Prudent policy or tail-chasing?

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s decision to implement prohibition in the state from 1 April 2016 is based on the rationale that alcohol consumption is the primary reason for violence against wome...

  • Perspectives

Missing unmarried women

The developing world has notoriously low sex ratios, a phenomenon that has been described as ‘missing women’. This is believed to be driven by parental preferences for sons, sex-selective abortion and...

  • Articles

Adult education, knowledge and confidence

Illiteracy, in India and elsewhere, is largely a female phenomenon. This column analyses a literacy programme aimed at adult women in India and finds that it has impacts beyond increasing literacy an...

  • Articles

Role model effects? Women's political participation in India

Women’s political candidacy in India is very low and appears to be an important barrier to their representation in government. Does a deficiency of female role models hold back women’s candidacy? Ana...

  • Articles