Women’s empowerment and economic development

Word of caution: I am not a feminist. I am simply trying to be an economist.

Despite India being a “richer” country than Bangladesh, having a per capita GDP of 1509 USD (2011) as compared to the per capita GDP in Bangladesh of 735 USD (2011), Bangladesh has fared better than India in reducing poverty. Bangladesh saw a 3.2 percentage points annual decrease in multi-dimensional poverty (MPI) in 2004-2007 as opposed to 1.3 percentage point decrease seen by India in 2003-2006. The difference lies in women’s empowerment- both political and financial- between Bangladesh and India.

The difference in the level of the empowerment of women in Bangladesh and India can be demonstrated by a lot of factors, but two of the major causes for the same are the reservations of seats in parliament and financial empowerment of women via micro credit schemes. The constitution of Bangladesh mandates reserving 45 of 350 seats (12.8%) for women in the national Parliament however the Indian government has been unable to pass the women’s reservation bill calling for 33% reservations for women in the Lok Sabha. This mandated reservation of parliamentary seats has led to higher representation of women in the Bangladeshi parliament. Furthermore both the leading political parties Awami League and BNP have female leaders in Sheikh Hasina and Khalida Zia respectively. In a country where the party system is seen to be “two top down organizations with upward loyalty being the sole criteria for political participation” the leader of the party has an influential say in the policies they support. Considering both leaders are women, it is only natural that they support policies leading to further empowerment of women, thus such is the nature of the policies that do get legislated.

Political empowerment of women in India has not achieved any such successes at the national level. The women’s reservation bill was introduced in parliament in September 1996; however it still struggles to be passed. The current representation of women stands at a measly 61 seats of a 552 Lok Sabha seats (11%) in a country where women account for 48.4% of the population. The political empowerment (or lack thereof) factors in greatly in computing the GII which I use to explain the difference in poverty reduction rates between the two countries.

With political empowerment of women, comes more social freedoms for women and hence a higher chance to seek education and employment leading to financial empowerment. The argument I would like to make here is that with their empowerment women are able to lift themselves out of poverty as well as the future generations they mother because as they are more prone to focus their expenditure on the health and education of their children. This facilitates the future generation to secure a brighter future, one that would not entail them living in poverty.

One of the only microfinance/ grant provision made to women by the Government of India is the National Maternity Benefit Scheme (NMBS). Under this scheme Rs. 500 is given as a subsistence grant per pregnancy to women of poor households for pre-natal and post natal care for the first two live births. Given the male dominated governance and bureaucracy in India, not only is the allocated budget underused by approximately 22% but also 20% of these grants were made to families staying above the poverty line. This shows the inefficiency and the inadequacy of this scheme in garnering women’s empowerment and consequentially poverty reduction.

Given the arguments and evidence presented above, I believe that women’s empowerment- political followed by financial empowerment- leads to a higher rate of poverty reduction in Bangladesh than in India. A higher degree of women empowerment leads to cultivation of a future generation that is better off in terms of their health and education. This thus enables them to work more effectively towards improving their standard of living and alleviating themselves from poverty.