‘Pink’ survey talks of ‘son’ bias, 63 million missing women

New Delhi: The pink-coloured Economic Survey tabled in Parliament on Monday recommended that India must confront the societal preference for a son, observing the adverse sex ratio of females to males had led to 63 million “missing” women.

The colour of this year’s Survey cover was chosen as a symbol of support for the growing movement to end violence against women, that spans continents. Laying special emphasis on gender development, the Survey, tabled by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, cautioned that on several indicators, notably employment, use of reversible contraception, and a preference for sons, India has some distance to traverse despite its economic progress.

The Survey states that just as India has committed to moving up the ranks in the Ease of Doing Business indicators, a similar commitment is needed on the gender front.

The percentage of working women has declined over time from 36 per cent employed in 2005-06 to 24 per cent of women employed in 2015-16, the Survey noted.

It acknowledges that the government’s “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” and “Sukanya Samridhi Yojana” schemes, and mandatory maternity leave rules are all steps in the right direction, saying measures like increasing maternity leave will offer support to women in the workforce. Given these observations, the states and all stakeholders have a major role to play in increasing opportunities for women in education and employment, it said.

According to the Survey, nearly 47 per cent of women do not use any contraception, and of those who do, less than a third use female-controlled reversible contraception. It highlighted another phenomenon of son metapreference, which involves parents adopting fertility “stopping rules” — having children until the desired number of sons are born.

“This metapreference leads naturally to the notional category of ‘unwanted’ girls — which is estimated at over 21 million,” says the Survey. Consigning these odious categories to history soon should be society’s objective, the Survey states. It also gives an assessment of India’s performance on gender outcomes relative to other economies.

However, the Survey noted an improvement in average levels of 12 out of 17 variables in India over time. While 62.3 per cent of women in India were involved in decisions about their own health in 2005-06, the number increased to 74.5 per cent in 2015-16.

The percentage of women who didn’t face physical or emotional violence also increased from 63 per cent to 71 per cent, whereas the median age at first childbirth also increased by 1.3 years over 10 years.

The Survey noted that the Northeastern states have been consistently outperforming others on the development parameters related to women, while hinterland states are lagging behind. However, surprisingly, some southern states like Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu fare worse than expected given their level of development, it added.