Developmental Constraints in a Changing Society

Dr. Kirti Pandey

Department of Sociology
D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur 273001
Social development is a bigger and more legitimate goal.

We do not need to justify social development for promoting

educational consciousness among women. Social development is

necessary to enable society to solve its own problems including

the problem of women’s education.

Modern development theory suggests that just as physical

capital (machines) augments people’s economic productivity, so

human capital acquired though education improves the

productivity of individuals. Confidence has grown in the belief

that education affects economic growth because many studies

have shown the positive correlation between country’s

educational efforts and its economic status and causality has

been attributed to education. If female schooling raises human

capital productivity and economic growth as much male

schooling does, then women’s disadvantage in education is

economically inefficient. Thus from the point of view of economic

efficiency, the gender gap in education is undesirable. While the

economic benefits of educating girls are similar in size to the

economic benefits of educating boys. Recent findings suggest

that the social benefits from investing in female education are far

greater than those from investing in male education. Especially

female education has powerful effects on the total fertility rates

(hence on population growth) and the infant mortality rate and

the female disadvantage in child survival and on child health and

nutrition.

There are many development constraints such as social,

economic, poetical, cultural etc. in general; gender discrimination

is one of the significant constraints among socio cultural

problems. It has affects the society as a whole.

Biological differences between men and women do not very

but the social roles that they are required to play vary from one

society to another and fluctuate over time. Further the nature f

gender discriminations and patterns of inequality vary among

culture attributes and opportunities associated with being male

and female. In most societies men and women differ in activities

they undertake an access and control of resources and in

participation in decision-making. These inequalities are a

constraints in growth because they limit the ability of women to

develop and exercise their full capabilities not only for their own

benefits but also for the society as a whole. Alarmingly lower rate

of literacy among females is directly related to the general

condition of gender discrimination.

The extent of bias in education and also in health in the

different states of India has been looked in this paper. indicating

the presence of anti-female bias, the being particularly

pronounced in some of the northern state. Social and cultural

factors are important factors explaining the existence and extent

of bias. it has also been suggested that there can be economic

explanations of the observed bias. One hypothesis is that the

female child will be considerably more valuable and hence

treated better if she is potential source of future income. Whether

gender bias has an economic explanation or not has important

policy implications. it can be argued that social and cultural

factors are deep-rooted and hence less tractable to policy

instruments. On the other hand the appropriate policies can

effectively change economic opportunities of women. Thus, if

gender bias can be at least explained in terms of different

economic opportunities for the two sexes, then there is a greater

scope for policies in reducing gender discriminations.

An analysis has been started with the observation that if

deep-rooted cultural factors are the major determinates of

gender bias, then regions or states which exhibit a high level of

bias in education should also be the regions of states, where

there is a high level of bias in health.

The level of poverty or income levels are likely to be

positively correlated with the level of mortality for the simple

reason that poorer households can afford lower or worse qualities

of nutrition and healthcare. Similarly, gross enrolment ratios are

also likely to be in poorer households for at least two reasons.

First, poorer households are less likely to be able to afford the

costs of education. This must an impact on educations. Thus

poverty is unlikely to be a major determinant of gender

discrimination.

The situation is more complicated in the discrimination of

health. Here two indicators have been used-infant and child

mortality rates. Except in Bihar, Haryana, Punjab and Uttar

Pradesh infant mortality rates do not reveal any bias against girls.

In several other states male infant mortality rates are actually

significantly higher than female mortality rates. However the fact

that male infant mortality rates are relatively higher may simple

reflect the biological superiority of female in the neonatal stage.

Moreover an overwhelming majority of infants in India are breast

fed, and there is no evidence suggesting that gender affects the

number of duration of breast feeds. So it is not surprising that

infant mortality figures do not reveal any discrimination against

girls.

To the best of our knowledge there has been a little work on

the determinants of gender bias in education. This is quite

surprising in view of the fact that at least in India the bias against

girls is more pronounced in education. Another Lacuna in the

literature is that there has been very little analysis of the time

series evidence on the incidence of the gender bias in education

and health in India. These provide motivation for the present

paper. In this paper we want to examine the extent of any bias

against girls in education and health and how the bias (if it exist)

has changed over time and we analysis the possible

determinants of gender bias in education in selected states. As

far as education is concerned we have used gross school

enrolment data published by the Ministry of Human Resource

Development, Government of India. Enrolment statistics by

various stage of education primary, middle and high school are

published on an annual basis. Gross enrolment is calculated as

the ratio of the total number of students enrolment in the

relevant stage by the estimated populations in a specified age

group. Thus the primary section is defined as class 1-5 with the

corresponding age- group being 6-11 years while 6-8 with age-

11-14 constitute the middle school. Of course the data on gross

enrolment is somewhat misleading since the enrolment ratio

does not take into account drop out rates which may be as high

as 60 percent in the terminal stages of primary education.

While a comparison of averages indicated the presence or

absence of discrimination, it says nothing about how many

existing bias has changed overtime. In the case of education

female disadvantage will increase with an increase in the amount

by which the female enrolment ratio falls short of the male ratio.

It means that female disadvantage (or advantage) will tend

to higher if the absolute values of the male and female rates are
high. as far as the gender discrimination in education is

concerned the enrolment ratio shows that the bias against girls is

widespread. It has been found that there is a significant bias

against girls ion all 15 states at both the primary and middle

school levels.

A popular hypothesis is that female workforce participation

has a negative impact on female disadvantage. More than one

reason has been advanced for this direction of causality. First

higher workforce participation increases the economic worth of

girl children and so arises the returns to investments in girls. Of

course greater the worth of females the lower should be the cost

of marrying off girls. That is dowry payments should be lower in

regions where female workforce participation is higher. Thus the

workforce participation rate for females is particularly unlikely to

be an exogenous variable in this context since discrimination

against girls in education can result in more female children

being sent out to work. It has been found that the increase in

percapita income has a positive and significant effect on female

enrolment in the primary school. In middle school, the effects of

this variable on enrolment are neutral acrossthe two sexes.

Hence, it has no effect on female disadvantage in middle schools.

There has been a significant trend decline in female

disadvantage in education. This has come about through a

significant higher rate of expansion of female enrolment. Also

female disadvantage has been in the middle school than in

primary school.

There is no discrimination against females so far as infant

mortality is concerned. Although an increase in female literacy

has a beneficial effort on mortality the effect is neutral across the

two sexes. Hence female literacy has no significant impact on

female disadvantage in mortality. Increasement in female literacy

by improving knowledge of elementary hygiene, as well as

awareness about the importance of proper nutrition and health

care can increase the absolute survival probabilities of both

sexes. Another route through which female literacy can have the

same effect on absolute survival probabilities is via total fertility.

Increases in female literacy are associated with lower fertility

because fewer children mean more resources per child.

Our result do not substantiate the hypothesis that greater

female workforce participation reduces female disadvantage in

health by improving their economic worth. Indeed the absolute

mortality rate of both boys and girls worsens with increasing

female participations in the labour force with girls, suffering more

than boys.

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