Date of Submission

2-16-2018

Date of Award

2-16-2019

Institute Name (Publisher)

Indian Statistical Institute

Document Type

Doctoral Thesis

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Subject Name

Quantitative Economics

Department

Economic Research Unit (ERU-Kolkata)

Supervisor

Pal, Manoranjan (ERU-Kolkata; ISI)

Abstract (Summary of the Work)

The goal of any development policy is to increase the living standard of the people in the society. In any developing country, the efficiency of such policy depends on how families reallocate the resources among themselves. If the distribution is even within the family then only it can be said that the policy was fruitful. Therefore, a family is an important part of any policy and the allocation within the family should be just. But, the distribution of the resources among the family members are not always equal. Inequality always exists! Discrimination against girls or women persists in approximately all the developing countries. The attitude towards women and the progress of a country both socially and economically are directly linked. The status of women is central to the health of the society. If one part suffers so does the other (Moser (2012)). Therefore, the issue of gender discrimination, over the last several decades, have attained increased prominence in the debates over development policy. Also gender awareness links policy and projects to equitable, efficient, and sustainable development. Sometimes it is also seen that not only females but also males are discriminated against in the resource allocation for some resources (see Fuwa (2014)).India is a vast country with diverse cultural and ethnic groups. It is emerging as a major global market, and it is the sixth-largest economy in terms of the nominal GDP. The average growth rate is approximately 7% over the last two decades. Although it is doing exceptionally good at the macro level, one cannot ignore the major drawbacks such as poverty, gender inequality, pollution, income inequality, unemployment, poor educational standards, poor infrastructure, inefficient agriculture, inequality within regions etc. Out of all these problems, the gender difference in intra-household resource allocation of resources is the most prominent yet mostly unnoticed as it is present in the very foundation of the society i.e. how the basic human necessity depends on the perception of the society that one gender is more entitled than the other. For most of the households, a major part of their income goes towards the food expenditure which includes fruits, vegetables, milk, spices, cereals and pulses, etc. and this expenditure is important for the health of the members of the households. There are instances that reveal gender difference in the food expenditure (Lancaster et al. (2008)). Also, gender difference has been observed in the areas of health, education, consumption, labour market outcomes etc., all over the world.To get a more clear picture of the gender issues in India we can look into a few indices and compare the neighbouring countries with ours and look for the extent to which there is discrimination. These indices help us to understand the respective position and condition of the nation with respect to others. One of these measures is ‘Gender Inequality Index value’. This ‘Gender Inequality Index’ is a composite measure reflecting inequality in achievements between women and men in three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment and the labour market. According to this measure, India has a value of 0.563 and rank 127, according to the Human Development Report, 2013. For the entire world, this value is 0.450.

Comments

ProQuest Collection ID: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqm&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:28843883

Control Number

ISILib-TH459

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

DOI

http://dspace.isical.ac.in:8080/jspui/handle/10263/2146

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