Mathur Ritika Passi

in national legislatures. In India, while
women make up for almost half of the
country’s population, the Women’s Reservation
Bill—intended as the ultimate step
towards achieving the target, if passed—
would only reserve 33% of all seats for
women. By providing room for variation
in the proportion of representation, the
modification of the MDG indicator may be
a setback.
On the upside, the current majority elected
government in India has long endorsed
the bill. 7 Prime Minster Narendra Modi
has repeatedly asserted the ruling party’s
focus on gender equality in his speeches 8 ;
it is possible that with India’s commitment
to the SDGs, discussion on the Women’s
Reservation Bill and on the larger issue of
women’s leadership will be revived and
pushed beyond the nominal 33%.
Further, despite being a rising economy,
female labour force participation in India
has declined sharply since the 1990s.
Today, less than 30% of women above 15
years are part of the labour force. 9 As the
world moves from the MDGs to SDGs, it
is essential to recognise that new developments
produce new challenges that often
affect men and women differentially. For
instance, globalisation and open market
economies have affected women farmers
more adversely due to a lack of competitive
skills and equal opportunities. Therefore,
the SDGs, while being global in nature,
must acknowledge local contexts as well as
previous successes and failures. The Indian
context is a case in point.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization, despite over 80% of
rural women being involved in agriculture,
Indian women in all own less than 10%
of agricultural land. 10 Land ownership is
critical for accessing credit and other statesponsored
irrigation schemes. 11 Therefore,
not owning land affects the agricultural
input of women farmers, which if enhanced,
could contribute towards reducing
world hunger. The connection between
gender, land ownership and food security
is recognised in the SDGs, which categorise
land ownership as a target in achieving
gender equality as well as a goal in ending
poverty (SDG 1). The goal dedicated to
ending hunger (SDG 2) also mentions that
“productivity and the incomes of smallscale
food producers particularly women”
must be doubled.
At the policy level, gender concerns are
now being mainstreamed in development
initiatives in India, such as in the case of
the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act, 12 a government
initiative formulated to secure livelihood
in rural areas. While the programme was
not explicitly envisioned as an initiative for
women’s empowerment, the gender-sensitive
design of the programme—it mandates
one-third of all beneficiaries to be women
and strives to provide employment with
child day-care facilities within a five-kilometre
radius of residence—has resulted in
numerous rural women joining the workforce,
both as workers and leaders.
Regarding land ownership, in 2005, the
Government of India amended inheritance
laws to ensure equal rights of parental
land inheritance among men and women.
However, studies 13 have shown that the law
has had little impact due to deep-rooted
cultural biases and traditions in favour
of sons over daughters. This indicates
that legislation alone is not sufficient, but
must be supplemented with education and
awareness generation policies.
The massive decline in women’s participation
in agriculture can be attributed to the
aforementioned factors. However, MDG
indicator 3.2 called for increasing the
share of women in wage employment in
the “non-agricultural sector.” According to
the National Sample Survey Organisation
Surveys, at the national level, the share
of women in wage employment in the
non-agricultural sector has increased since
2000, but remains low globally. 14 Moreover,
gender disparity in wages exists in both
agricultural and non-agricultural occupations.
The gender gap in daily wage rates
remains particularly high in skills-intensive
manufacturing sectors. 15 While the gender
MDG did not incorporate this disparity,
the gender SDG includes it as an indicator.
Further, recognising that it interlinks gender
with Goal 8 on growth and employment,
gender wage gap is also included
under target 8.5: “By 2030 achieve full
and productive employment and decent
work for all women and men, including for
young people and persons with disabilities,
and equal pay for work of equal value.”
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