God Is Green

 

Winter is said to bring in a large number of migratory birds to Savar in Bangladesh, the place where this writing on the wall said, the God is Green.

 Indeed two of three large lakes were filled with them. The three lakes happen to be in Jahangir Nagar University campus.

 

I did not expect the place to be particularly different from Dhaka. Still, I was disappointed to see construction all over.

 

Young and park variety trees indicate that the indigenous trees have diminished and the new ones are part of plantation drives.

 

A friend informed that the birds start coming here from November and remain until March. She recollected the birds used to fully cover by the lakes’ surfaces.

 

Compared to this description, the number of the birds seemed small. It seems that the number of birds took a nose dive due to poor environmental conservation and a lack of protection.

 

In the last two or three years, the number has improved but unless pollution is controlled, construction minimized and made environment friendly, fishing in the lakes checked, spraying of insecticides stopped, and noise pollution caused by those in the campus and visitors' vehicle and blaring music systems regulated, this habitat of the migratory birds will remain under threat.

I hope. I wish.

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Power is Money and Money is Power?




Paid Work. Photo Courtesy: Commonwealth Foundation



The road to equality in rights, in ability to exercise those rights, and in being able to obtain redress when rights are violated is a story of crossovers of human rights not often recognized. Often, protection of a particular right is seen as enough. For example, many believe that if women are ‘bestowed’ with economic rights it will end the discriminations against girls and violations of women’s human rights. The rationale behind this thinking is that money gives a person power. In other words, पैसा बोलता है!

It is correct that economic empowerment of the vast majority, especially in a poverty-ridden context such as India, is a critical need that must be met. More so when we have all data to see that the income gap has worsened in the last decade. But the limitations of the economic empowerment approach as an isolated-strategy, as far as girls and women are concerned, are also out there to see. The limitations exist in the form of dowry-murders of educated and employed women, double-whammy of paid work and unpaid household work that economically empowered women have to suffer, denial of certain civil rights like ‘equal parenthood’ to married/divorcee women, demands to write ‘father’s/husband’s name’ in any and every document with a bit of legality involved and so on. The fact that women who bring dowry get killed for bringing ‘less than expected dowry’ or ‘no more dowry’ shows that women, when it comes to money, are seen as conduits to bring money or sources of unpaid work that would save and build up money of their husband/father and the rest. This is why women have such poor control over their resources and income. This means that women's ability to earn an income or bring resources home cannot be equated with or assumed to mean control of income and an ability to own, use, and dispose material assets. The question is what is preventing women from using money as power ever so often?

Unpaid Work. Photo Courtesy:
Socio Economic Research Institute

At the immediate level, household relationships affect women's ability to control their income. Prevailing codes of gender relationships may place the husband/father/another male recognized as having rights over a women in control of all or some income/resources of a woman. Women are often not involved in the savings, investment or expenditure related discussions and decision-making. When their name is added to ownership documents, it is usually to benefit from the certain taxation policies. It is also not unusual to find that majority women are still given a fixed sum every month by their husbands to run the kitchen even if the income has been earned by women. And this does not happen only in the rural or urban slum areas.

The next level that affects women’s economic empowerment from bringing empowerment in the other realms of life can be called the neighbourhood or environmental barrier. This barrier varies in its controlling power from culture to culture, region to region, class to class and sometimes, a bit also from caste to caste.  But, on the whole, this barrier aims to ensure that women’s economic empowerment does not pose a threat to patriarchal family relations.  This barrier exists in the form of socio-cultural practices like early/child marriage; denial of women’s choices with regard to who they would like to marry or whether or not they would like to stay in a marriage; procreation being treated as women’s duty and  determining the number of and spacing between children a male preserve; recognizing descent through male lineage; dime-a-dozen festivals like karwa-chauth and teej, which tell women that they are nothing without their husbands or like raksha-bandhan or rakhi that tell girls they can’t protect themselves and will always need the protection of their brothers; and so on. This barrier works by establishing women as ‘dependents’ and thereby reducing their bargaining power vis-à-vis their male family members and in doing so not recognizing women as equal members of the society.

Agriculture Extension. Photo Courtesy:
Institute for Integrated Rural Development

At the outer level, because of the denial or repression of the social and cultural rights, the discrimination against women continues to be evident in the economic fields as well. This includes job market and entrepreneurship opportunities. Denial of equality in the social and cultural realms means that women, without male relatives, have limited access to social security; continue to be treated as unwanted children so either get killed in the womb or attract little investment in their health and education, and as a result, have high rates of illiteracy in comparison to men; and live in the extreme poverty and with social exclusion.

In terms of economic impact of the above, women come out as a lower-grade human resource who cannot either meet demands of the job market or match the requisites of the entrepreneurship opportunities because they lack in relevant skills and education and do not have collaterals of offer. Where women are qualified to meet these demands, they are seen as incapable because of gender stereotypes. Sometimes, the job market cannot reject women on grounds of qualifications or a perceived lack of capacity due to the affirmative legal provisions but employers still go ahead and under-pay or deny equal opportunities to women because they are confident that the justice system will be inaccessible to women. 

The cumulative impact of the above is also felt on their political participation, which is no small deal. Limited or restricted political participation affects women’s ability to protect and promote their rights through public policies, laws and oversight. It prevents them from holding their elected representatives and the governance system accountable to them.

The basic problem is that discrimination against girls and women is engrained the socio-cultural, economic and political fabric of the country. The discriminations are deep-seated beliefs and practices that have been institutionalized. They are what may be termed as structural inequalities. These inequalities are pervasive in all public and private spheres, including the economy, education, labour, health, justice and decision-making and so on. These inequalities do not occur in isolation rather crossover from one sector to another and act simultaneously.

So what do we take from the fact that women have less means than men to satisfy basic needs like education, training, food, access to housing and to the specialized health services, like, safe child-birth, pre and post natal medical facilities, contraception, and women specific diseases; that they are particularly vulnerable to physical and sexual violence; and that they have limited options when it comes to finding decent work and having a voice in shaping public in their countries? In my opinion, it shows the defeat of the isolated-strategies and calls for multi-pronged concerted strategies for promoting and protecting all of women’s human rights. 

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Fears That Consume Our Lives

We are humans after all and it is all right to be afraid but afraid of things that we need to be afraid of. Why is it that most of us try to lead or chart our lives in a manner that seems value-laden but inside so many of us are hollow; we cheat at any given opportunity, would lie to cover-up a wrong-do, or malign somebody else, abuse or exploit, misuse other’s resources, and power and access, when we have them. The fear that consumes our lives is not that we may not be leading a useful and value-based life. The fear that dominates is that what we really are will come out in the open. This leads to the other corrupt attempts at buying goodwill, silence and respect.

Fear in itself it not a bad thing. It can be an important factor in determining how we can be useful and how much we can accomplish within one lifetime. In this process, mistakes can be made but if the mistakes were not linked to negative characteristics or behaviour, the true acceptance of the mistakes will not be such a big issue. However, if the mistakes were linked to hollowness of our character, it would lead to a fear of making mistakes and getting exposed. Otherwise, the mistakes will be the points in life from which we could learn and move on.

It is also futile to indulge too much in gratifying the self because of the fear that tomorrow could be the end of the lifetime. This leads to a mad rush to please the senses by indulging in meaningless adventures, thoughtless attempts to conquer the nature, and do all the ‘Dos’ without knowing that really makes a life worthwhile or pleasurable. If the fears were to be that the life is unpredictable we lack the knowledge and resources to make it worthwhile for ourselves and the others, whether it is short or long, it may lead us to a lifestyle that makes us capable of intellectual and emotional growth in the present and encourages us to lead a sustainable lifestyle that would keep that growth on track in the future.

We often tend to brand ourselves as this or that type of person and the fears of losing that brand identity are so high that we end up putting all sorts of blindfolds and pressures on ourselves to appear true to that brand type. In the process we restrict ourselves from different information, experiences, knowledge that enrich life and bring growth in it. If the fear were that we may no longer be dynamic, it would push us to receive and share experiences and knowledge and help us explore lives that are harmonious and integrated with the others.

Often we undermine or ridicule others’ thinking, their way of living even when it is most harmless, and emotions because we lack a sense of security in ourselves. We may appear confident and to the others we may appear arrogant but that arrogance is often nothing more than intellectual insecurity deep down. The fear of our intellectual inadequacy getting exposed keeps us in the company of those who would indulge us and even when we are being the most obnoxious will make us feel like a messiah. Such people, perhaps, see through our insecurity, and therefore, are able to exploit it. By not accepting that we may not be the most intellectual or better than the others, we allow ego-centric growth which eventually takes away our capacity to learn and to develop relationships of selfless bonding and care because we start seeking ego gratification from every person who is in our lives or who we encounter in our lives. A fear of getting trapped in an intellectual or physical coterie, on the other hand, could help us develop genuine friendships and egalitarian relationship.

We also fear change though we are under a constant change. We feel that that we can cope with the changed circumstances or meet self-needs or of the others without making a change in the way we think or live. We cling to what we are used to, no matter how harmful to the self or the others, superficial or useless that may be, and fail to evolve. Change then becomes a burden. Instead, if we were fearful of not being honest about our changed circumstances, we would try to do something about that by making a valid and effective change in the life.

A useful life is not far from a fulfilling life. A life cannot be useful unless it is useful to the others and the others do not imply the ones who indulge our egos. A life cannot be useful unless it is open to experiences, and capable of evolving through constant learning. And a life cannot be fulfilling without being sought out by genuine emotions of the others which will come to us only if the first two factors are present. Hardly anybody reaches out with emotions to somebody who acts in a certain useful way to maintain a particular self-image.

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Educating the Yemeni girls

Photo: Oxfam GB

With so much of ho-hulla over girls’ education where is Yemen headed? My own visits to different parts give me both optimism and causes despair. The concrete structures of the schools impress me but the fact that no special efforts are being made to motivate parents to send their daughters to schools and allow them to complete their education is disheartening. Recently, a colleague mentioned that during her meeting with education officials in a governorate, the officials grumbled that they built schools for girls but all the schools are running into a loss. What they meant was that the investment and regular cost of maintaining those schools is not matched by adequate enrollment and retention of girls in these schools. This is a clear example of schools being built without community consultations and agreements with parents. Community participation in the decision-making related to the location of the school, facilities required in the schools and the sex of the staff pay a key role in a community’s willingness to allow their daughters to get an education.

My own visits to a few schools located close to or inside villages demonstrated another side of the story. Village elders and school authorities informed that the demand for seats in schools is far higher than the capacity of these schools. They have developed an interesting strategy to deal with the problem. Every year, they enroll the older girls and reject younger ones. They believe that in this way every girl will have a chance to study, albeit late. The flipside of this strategy is that it reduces the ‘learning years’ that a girl has. Since a large number of girls are taken off the school by their parents when they reach the age of puberty, these girls have lesser number of years to pursue education.

The experience of the schools located close to or inside villages, however, demonstrates that a few simple steps can improve girls’ enrolment. If the reasons behind drop out is analyzed and remedial steps are followed in a comprehensive and integrated way alongside factors that have led to an increased demand for seats in schools, an enormous impact on girls’ retention in schools and completion of education can be ensured. Let us look at some of the steps that could be taken up.

Despite the fact that villages in Yemen are small and located far from one-another, the need to open basic and secondary school in disadvantaged and remote areas cannot be emphasized more. The above given examples show that unless schools are located within a distance that communities feel is appropriate a large number of girls in rural areas will continue to miss out education. If the government feels inadequate to build and maintain schools in all areas, it should aid and encourage nongovernmental organization to start bridge schemes, and nonformal education centres to provide quality education to small number of students in the local communities. Such education programmes should be recognized by the public and private sector so that their usefulness is not any less than qualifications acquired in government institutions.

Photo: Oxfam GB

Girls’ education, from basic to secondary level, to become a ‘viable option’ for parents, must be free. In a society, which does not regard education having any intrinsic value or does not see girls education as having any material value, any cost, whether school fees or the cost of book, stationary, uniform and transportation or hidden costs like those charged for student projects, is bound to be seen as an avoidable drain of family income and can discourage parents from sending their daughter to a school.

These two steps alone will not be sufficient unless all schools have women teachers. These teachers should be trained, motivated and supported not only in teaching but also in organizing community outreach activities so that they can induce girls into education. Often, parents are concerned about sending their daughters to a co-educational school because they fear for their safety and honour. For example, one of my colleagues after a focus group discussion with a community in Seiyun district shared that most parents in this community are reluctant to send their daughters to the school because a male teacher tried to molest a girl student. It is important, therefore, that the schools in participation with communities should put code of conduct for male teachers and students and sanctions in place to stop harassment and abuse of girls.

It would be a good idea to provide some incentives to poor families to motivate them to send their daughters to the school. The incentives could take the form of free food, stipend to pursue basic and secondary education, free transport, a fixed deposit that the girl can receive after she completes secondary education, etc.

Another important issue is that education and vocational training should not be rolled out separately. A step that is needed to convince parents about the usefulness of girls’ education is to compliment education with market-oriented vocational skills. This will help parents see immediate usefulness of educating their daughters.

Another critical step that is needed, at least, in the initial stage to give a thrust to these efforts is to give job/income generation opportunities to those women who complete their education in the formal sector. This step calls for coordination and collaboration between various agencies, both governmental and nongovernmental. It requires that the donor agencies which support basic and secondary education, vocational training and employment generation programmes should see these three as connected issues and their grant-making policies should reinforce these connections.

To sum up there is a need not only to invest more in girls’ education but also to invest effectively. This calls for high level of donor and government commitment to increase investment as well as to strategically reform education curricula and delivery systems. And this commitment must be sustained over a long term to provide free and universal access and other facilitative services, and to achieve balance between education and relevant vocational training in schools.

Article originally published at Yemen Times: http://www.yementimes.com/defaultdet.aspx?SUB_ID=21889

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Going Through Death to Give Birth

Yet a large number of societies and parents continue the practice of early marriage for several reasons including blind faith in culture or religion, hopes of financial and social gains, relieving their own responsibilities towards the child based on her gender and so on. In my view, the continuation of the practice is rooted in social acceptance of slavery of women. Internalization of servility and acceptance of the correctness of the practice is more likely to be successful if women are tamed early, as early as possible. Girl children and young adult women are easy to terrorize and therefore easier to be kept under control and by the time they could be expected to have developed some courage to protest, they are likely to be pregnant and socially isolated as a result of lacks of education and interaction with their peer groups. They are forced to accept their condition as their destiny. Many states and their governments, despite being signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, continue to turn a blind eye to the practice.

This is a brief introduction of a longer article first published by the Yemen Times: http://www.yementimes.com/defaultdet.aspx?SUB_ID=22147 and re-published at http://bellbajao.org/2010/05/04/going-through-death-to-give-birth/. Please follow either of the links for the full article.

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Elections & Votes … Are These All to Democracy?

Elections are commonly viewed as the key element of democracy. In deed, they are but they are one of the key elements. When democracy is understood in terms of democratic representation, it is easier to understand that it entails a far more complex process that extends well beyond elections. Citizens participate in governance through a multiplicity of activities - among them interaction with their chosen representative, and getting their chosen representatives and others influenced through participation in voluntary associations, social movements, interest groups, and nongovernmental organizations-all of which enable citizens to voice common concerns and influence public policy between elections. Through these they are able to have a voice in decisions that govern them. Representative democracy is therefore not just about the elected representatives but it is the broad framework of ‘mediated politics’. How the elected representatives will be influenced by mediated politics is not determined by their skills to read and write (it is good if they have these skills) but by their intellect, ability to analyse, ability to see the interlinkages and impact of their actions, ability to express in any medium that is understood by the key group whose interests they are representing and so on.

Since representative democracy can remain representative only by being in an environment of integrated multiple channels of interaction, what is needed is also that the chosen representatives are people who are part of multiplicity of activities or initiatives in which their electorate are engaged. That means they need to be people who are rooted (even by the process of transplantation/naturalisation/adoption/immigration) in their constituencies and so that they link the constituencies with the political system. The repercussion of a lack of this rootedness and all the other abilities that are mentioned in the first paragraph is the representatives cannot see the various interest groups in their constituency, do not hear different voices that would enable them to represent all interests.

If criteria like minimum education qualification becomes a minimum eligibility condition for contesting election, it runs the risk of pushing those out who have all the abilities to be a representatives but lack the reading and writing skills. It also runs the risk of further marginalizing the those who are educationally marginalized because they may prefer their interests to be represented by one of them. Usually the educationally marginalized are also socially, economically, and/or politically marginalized. Therefore, the imposition of the minimum education qualification as is sought, say in an employee in a public or private sector, runs the risk of not giving representation to, for example, women because in a country like India, majority of them are illiterate. This does not foretell well in a country where women’s interests and numbers both remain largely unrepresented. Such a requirement pushes back the representation of the disabled, dalits, and many other such interest groups.

Also there is a need to break the perception that only those citizens who take part in election and are interested in party politics are active citizens and keeping democracy alive. Citizens who identify with certain political parties do mediate the politics through their participation and opinions and therefore through the political parties play a role in the political process. But lack of engagement with on decline in engagement with in party politics does not signal the absence from mediated politics. Similarly non-exercise of the right to vote does not mean disengagement or social disinterest in politics. These citizens usually still influence politics through their engagement in media (including internet and traditional media), social and interest groups and many other forms of organized or informal interactions. Often, those who are ‘disgusted’ or ‘disappointed’ with the current day politicians or those contesting elections, they resort to other outlets, platforms, and means of engagement that influence or are a part of political mediations. Rise of protest and social movements and social accountability measures like gender audits and social audits, emergence and mushrooming of interest groups, creative ways to institutionalize participation like participatory development and budgeting, community policing, etc, are an example of ‘non-party political engagement’. This kind of situation does not symbolise decline in citizen’s political participation rather it means a decline in party and vote based politics and growth in 'personalised politics'. It is also a sign that the strength of political parties is going to decline gradually, particularly, in terms of their ability to mobilise electorate. This is already evidenced by the proliferation of the smaller political parties, regional parties, independents, and weakening of the major political parties in India. This also keeps democracy alive as these citizens may have chosen not to exercise their right to vote but by their 'personalised politics', they are still being effective citizens in the sense that they are still mediating politics of the place/region/nation.

Read a similar post: http://j-k.in/blog/2009/12/make-voting-mandatory/

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The Education Catch

Education, now-a-days, is hardly being looked upon for educating the mind. Primary education, mostly as a means of acquiring the ability to read and write – to be able to read labels and signs, Higher education, increasingly, is seen as a means to acquire better jobs and to some degree set up businesses – an economic avenue. This way of looking at education is universal. Reading and writing may not have been required as a survival skill a century back and therefore treated as something important for the brain and intellectual growth. That is part of the reason why it used to be a pursuit of the wealthy, ruling classes and the like. With time and changes in the economic contexts education has become a commercial investment for individuals, families, institutions, and governments. A small woman farmer needs to be able to read the amount that she is signing in the account book of her self-help group or fill the form that the disgruntled staff member of a nationalized bank wants her to complete before s/he can tell her that she will get that little loan. Today, the critique of the commercial value of education is a privileged criticism. Education is no longer a delicacy to feed the brain or an ability to intellectualize the small matters of life that would make the person someone to whom the working classes would turn to for advice.

‘Social Returns’ or economic returns to the family or society against the investment made in a child/person’s education have become an important measure to assess effectiveness of education. And this is where the catch lies. Social significance attached to particular sex, class, caste, region (or location), etc influence the understanding of ‘who’ can bring higher Social Returns from education. This influence is critical, of utmost significance, as it is this understanding that makes a father or mother or the family determine who will receive education, who will receive what education, and who will receive education where. This understanding also influences social decision about which education will get prioritised and demanded and since society is a whole only conceptually, only those who hold power in a society get heard. The understanding also shapes the strategies of the institutions – governments, academic or otherwise who are capable of investing in education – as to who will constitute their ‘clientele’, what kind of education they would offer to whom, in which location they would offer the services and on what terms. Supposedly poor socio-economic worth of women, the supposedly lower castes and certain classes, forest dwelling communities or those living in remote areas where any form of economic development will require very high investment and would have a much longer gestation period, etc become disincentive to investment in their education by the families, institutions and governments.

Different types of education - primary, secondary, technical, higher education, etc – also pose different gendered challenges. The challenges that each type throws up require different responses. The situation is further complicated by the fact that although some problems cut across geographical barriers, education is a “State” subject in India and each state government has different legislations that affect education differently. The role of the family and society in making the changes in the state is of paramount but so is the orientation with which the party in governance comes to govern the state. For example in Kerala, higher level of literacy has been possible because of the communist elected government which forcibly introduced land and education reforms. But there has been a set back in the quality of education in Kerala in the recent years because the same government did not attempt to influence social traditions or practices and limited itself to reform as far as economics goes. This doesn’t meant that there have been no social change and reform processes going on. There have been but these have been led separately by individuals and groups who are concerned about gender inequality issues and caste issues. The poor synergy between the two or the state’s inability to go beyond economics contributed to what has been otherwise a smooth growth in literacy. Having said this, the fact that the communist government created a space to address these issues, which is visibly absent in other states, including the current day communist state West Bengal, made it possible for the individuals and groups to create a demand and desire for change.

The ‘Social Returns’ perspective needs to be continuously critiqued for its top-down approach as well as for being divorced from the socio-cultural analysis. It will benefit immensely by aligning itself with the social change and reform agenda and with the demand for reform in gender relations or the social allocation of roles and responsibilities to women and men and girls and boys in relation to each other and in the public space. Without this alignment, the claims made by institutions and governments that education will address and find responses to social issues will just remain a rhetoric without any value. Education cannot be looked at in isolation and it will bring ‘Social Returns’ for all only if we recognize and consciously work on the gender, class, caste, regional (or locational) and religious dynamics within families, societies and cultures.

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Reducing gender differentials in education for high social returns

‘[Education] is a component of wellbeing and a factor in the development
of well-being through its links with demographic as well as economic and social factors.’

(UN, ICPD Chapter XI, Para 11.2, P76)

The moment of recognition of education as a tool of development is an outcome of years of advocacy supporting associations between women’s education and social welfare aspects like GNP per capita, life expectancy, infant and maternal mortality rate, total fertility rates and so on. It was also a moment establishing women as a major tool of development. Development economists and international institutions have indeed put forward higher social returns or the larger benefits that the society gains from education, particularly primary education, as a major argument to invest in women’s education from 1960s until now. This is the key reason behind my decision to focus on rates of social return and its broad implication for women. However, I acknowledge that in any society, the approach towards education and the impact of that approach are mediated by a range of other socio-political and cultural issues like ideology of those holding political power, political and governance systems, political, traditional and cultural values of the people, principles of social composition and so on.

At first, I will give a background of the human capital theory and a brief overview of the international institutions’ perspective and arguments and examples from my direct and indirect work experiences in the Eastern, Northern and Western Indian states and the Southern state of Kerala to substantiate the statement. In the second part, I will examine the validity of the arguments for higher social returns and explore various arguments for and against the social returns perspective to analyse its potentials and limitations. While examining potentials, I will argue that the social returns perspective needs to be continuously critiqued for its top-down approach as well as for its treatment of women as nothing more than mere tools for development. I am making this critique in knowledge that education without remunerative economic implication may not be a viable investment option for most people, especially the poor. But I am persuaded by the fact that it often results in girls and women being used for economic benefits of the family, community and society and this happens without any changes in the traditional gender relations, which could benefit women.

Background

The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) memorandum’s roots could be traced to the rates of social return theory and efficiency approaches, specially the human capital approach in works like Uzawa’s Optimal Technical Change in an Aggregative Model of Economic Growth, Burns & Chiswick’s Analysis of the Effects of a Graduated Tuition Program at State Universities, Cohn et al ’s Benefit and Cost of Higher Education and Income Redistribution: Three Comments, Lucas’s On the Mechanics of Economic Development, Benhabib & Spiegel’s The Role of Human Capital in Economic Development: Evidence from Aggregate Cross-Country Data, and Aghion & Howitt’s Endogenous Growth Theory. The authors of these works have been trying to establish theoretical as well as material connections between education and growth. According to Schultz, Most early human capital theorists, however, did not include sex/gender as a category of analysis (qtd. in Woodhall 9). He viewed the theorists’ failure to this end as a tendency to see human capital as a unique male preserve, which initiated the process to engender the rates of social return theory through women’s education. It led Benham to analyse the positive influence of wife’s education on husband’s wages or market returns to marriage and labour market benefits to the family over and above increments to women’s own earnings (Benefits of Women's Education within Marriage S57-S71).

Over the period, the concept of the rates of social return has been widened to lay emphasis on externalities apart from private returns like increase in wages and women’s improved reproductive and care skills. The emphasis on externalities has highlighted the benefits which may occur to other social agents and larger society from spill-overs. Currently, rates of social return theory imputes both economic and non-market returns. It regards education important not only for women themselves but also for their family members and social development. Schultz argues that private returns or private benefits like increased individual and household gains from market productivity and non-market gains to the household, and social benefits like enlargement of tax base and positive externalities, should be the reasons for the governments to invest more in girls’ education. He considers investment in education for girls as the factors responsible for higher rates of social and economic growth in South-east Asia, East Asia and Latin America and poor investment in girls’ education for limited growth in the Middle-East and North Africa (Why Governments Should Spend More to Educate Girls 207-208). Recent publications like King and Hill’s Women's Education in Developing Countries: Barriers, Benefits and Policies, Hartnett and Heneveld’s Statistical Indicators of Female Participation in Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, Subbarao et al’s Women in Higher Education: Progress, Constraints and Promising Initiatives, Chakrabarti’s Women and adult Literacy in China: A Preliminary Inquiry and Kwesiga’s Women's Access to Higher Education in Africa: Uganda's Experience , which are focused on education and gender support and education for social change also reflect development economists' and international institutions’ focus on educating women to achieve higher social return.

Perspectives of International Institutions

The international conferences on women in Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980) and Nairobi (1985) brought global attention to women in the low income countries. They led to formation of women’s departments, organizations, etc with a focus on improving women’s productive role through education. This women specific and women related programming came to be termed as women in development (WID) approach. The gender neutral way and lack of context specificity however resulted in maintenance of education gap between women and men (Leach Practicing Gender Analysis in Education 9; Kelly & Elliot Women's Education in the Third World: Comparative Perspectives 336). WID approach focused mostly on infrastructure development, such as the provision of rooms to conduct classes, in hope that a large number of schools will make education accessible to girls. Indeed, the availability of schools close to residences/homes does matter but in the absence of budgeting for complimentary and critical resources like quantity and quality of teachers and planning of school time table and curricula to meet the needs of the girls, investment in construction of school buildings is a waste. Sights of small school buildings without teachers or half complete rooms abandoned by the local government and people across rural areas in states like Bihar and Jharkhand are not uncommon.
Disenchantment with WID, beginning in 1980s, led to the emergence of two main schools of gender and development (GAD) approach. In development parlance, one is known as the efficiency approach, and the other as the empowerment approach. Both attempted to incorporate gender analysis in planning of all development projects including education. The purpose of gender analysis in the efficiency model, which is an adapted form of WID’s rates of social return theory, has been to ensure greater effectiveness by including women in economic development. The empowerment model focuses on increasing awareness of gendered structures and power relations amongst women. Derbyshire feels that both approaches are constrained in the sense that they ”focus on what women could do for development rather than what development could for women” (qtd. in Leach 10). The empowerment approach, however, has been more effective in a country like India. The focus on power analysis helps see gender, caste and class based fragmentations within educational curricula. Such fragmentations affect the quality of education available to women and men. This approach has been widely used by the civil society organizations including women’s organizations to develop educational methodologies and curricula to enhance egalitarian social and cultural capital and to influence educational and employment/livelihoods choices available to women.

The limitations of the efficiency and empowerment models paved the way for gender mainstreaming approach which attempts to combine strengths of efficiency and empowerment models and proposes integrating women’s and men’s concerns throughout the development process. The ICPD conference and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) can be seen as two historical events in this process. In the context of India, gender mainstreaming approach brings to focus what has long been argued by feminists and gender sensitive educationists, namely that education is not merely about literacy rather it is an issue of gender and social justice. This approach provides the opportunity to analyse gender roles as a dynamic division and to induce changes in gender relations not just by empowering women but also advocating for changes in roles of men. But there are threats to the practical application of this approach. Often, development organizations and educational institutions across the country tend to perceive traditional gender role divisions as stagnant. Mainstreaming is, therefore, limited to accommodating existing gender needs but does not lead to an analysis of gender relations for a more egalitarian future. Mainstreaming is seen as making the same educational opportunities available to women and men. So, we do have newer areas of education and training opening up for women and some changes in the basic education curricula but there is not enough support like changes in pedagogy and curriculum, advocacy to address barriers arising from attitudinal issues and facilitative mechanisms for women to raise many other substantive issues which affect the learning process. Women still have to compete and perform in systems which were developed with little regard to women’s perspective and needs.

Also, adoption of mainstreaming approach does not imply that the ideas of rates of social return theory have been discarded. Despite these simultaneous processes and international feminist movement’s emphasis on gender mainstreaming, rates of social return theory or the efficiency approach continue to be used. For example, although the World Bank has moved on to mainstream gender through sector-wide approaches (SWAps), its publications like Wheale’s Education, Externalities, Fertility, and Economic Growth, Psacharopoulos et al’s Poverty and Income Distribution in Latin America, and Summers’s Investing in All the People: Educating Women in Developing Countries show theoretical and programmatic orientations indicating that education has been promoted either as a direct objective for improving women’s economic efficiency or as a strategy to facilitate social development. Similarly, bilateral donor agencies like DfiD or erstwhile ODA, USAID, AusAID, Japan ODA, etc hold on to the perspective that limited access to education lowers women's status and affects their capacity to effectively contribute to development programmes related to health, nutrition and family planning and livelihoods. Hence the need for intervention to make education available and accessible to women. Using Kabeer’s idea of institutional analysis in social relations approach it could be concluded that the policies and practices of international political, bilateral, lender and aid institutions influence the course of the low income countries’ policies and practices (qtd. in Leach 86-92). The emphasis on universal access to education emphasized by donor and bilateral agencies is a carryover from WID approach. Universal access may secure equal enrolment of girls and boys and wherever it has happened it is definitely used as a trump card by policymakers. For example, till recently, Kerala was cited as an example where universal access to education led to 100 percent literacy. It is also a state where property ownership and inheritance among women is higher compared to other states. Nowadays, however, it is not uncommon to hear about a decline in the literacy rate, increasing unemployment among women, an ever increasing workload of women and the segregation of women in care jobs like nursing, teaching, and so on. The reason is not hard to see. The emphasis on universal access to basic education requires much less resources. It is also important to note that this emphasis is laid mostly at the level of basic education. I feel that a tangible output like enrolment and retention of girls in basic education is used as a cover to hide the absence of political will which is critical for adopting principles of gender equality in education and for investing in curricula and systemic transformation of education. The WID approach improves women’s economic efficiency to the extent that women get access to the formal economic sector but it also lead to their segregation in lower level and care jobs. In my view, due to the absence of qualitative and ‘gender just’ transformation of education, despite universal access to basic education there has not been much qualitative change in gender gap in higher and technical education or in gender relations across Kerala.

Validity of Rates of Social Return & Efficiency Arguments

Theorists and researchers have differed over the argument that education increases the rates of social return and therefore contributes towards efficiency. Woodhall in Investment in Women: a Reappraisal of the Concept of Human Capital found that the private rates of return from education among women in relation to men were relatively less but she advocated that non-economic benefits must to be taken into account while estimating human capital (10). There are findings that support Woodhall’s suggestion that non-economic benefits may increase as result of education. For example, Hartnett & Heneveld in Statistical Indicators of Female Participation in Education in Sub-Saharan Africa used gender disaggregated data from six developed and three developing countries to prove that women’s education brings higher social returns. They estimate that each additional year of schooling decreases mortality of children below 5 years by 5-10 percent and the fertility rate declines by 10 percent. Unlike Woodhall who suggested that private returns to women remain less than men despite improvement in education, Psacharopoulos in Returns to Investment in Education: A Global Update suggested higher private returns from women’s education (1327). Psacharopoulos attempted to establish that investment in women’s education is an attractive investment opportunity because the aggregate of social and private rates of return for women is marginally higher than rates of return for men. The social and private rates of return are usually analyzed by comparing the amount of public cost on education with the approximate cost of improved reproductive services that the society and family gains as a result of women’s education and the extra tax that a state is able to generate on resultant improved earnings of women.

According to Kanbur in Education, Empowerment and Gender Inequalities, the arguments supporting women’s education on grounds of social returns suggest that women are not able to efficiently use certain opportunities and there is low supply of women’s economic effort because of labour market discrimination. Ultimately, it results in inefficient utilization of provisions like common property resources. Similar arguments exist to establish relationship between education and fertility, etc. The assumption is that addressing such constraints through education and legislation can increase efficiency (8-9). However, as apparent from the difference in Woodhall, Hartnett & Heneveld’s and Psacharopoulos’s findings, the rates of return are not consistent.

Some theorists like Baden & Green critique the methodologies which are used to impute these social returns (3). Another factor which makes it difficult to fully substantiate rates of social return theory is the near impossibility of quantifying entire range of externalities or social benefits. As a consequence, many wider externalities are often not included in calculations which tend to lower estimates of social returns and also lead to differences in the findings of different economists. Looking at the rates of social return theory from the perspective of gender equality, I see another gap. The theorists and promoters of the theory did not make any attempt to quantify the benefits that may accrue to women themselves as a result of education. The trend to leave the benefits to women out from the calculations has reinforced the role of women as tools of development and has prevented transformation of social expectations from women in a ‘gender just’ manner.

Arguably, there is a connection between women’s education and rates of social return. But the emerging picture from the developing countries belies the social return theory that the over all benefits arising from women’s education benefits women as well. The empirical findings suggest that women’s education has not always enhanced gender equality as it fails to account for regional variations in outcomes and cultural and gender specific constraints. The empirical findings also suggest that outcomes of education for women are not always favourable for women. Jeffery & Jeffery’s study titled Killing My Heart’s Desire: Education and Female Autonomy in Rural North India shows that with the improvement in women’s education among the ‘lower caste’ families in Nangal Village and emulation of ‘upper caste’ practices, there has been a gradual withdrawal of women from the wage work. Another example is the ever increasing work load of women. Education has facilitated women’s participation in paid work in many parts of the world but in the absence of any change in the traditional gender relations, women’s workload has also multiplied.

Arguments For and Against the Rates of Social Return & Efficiency Approaches

The rates of social return theory and efficiency approach are useful in explaining how the labour market discriminates by rewarding women's education less well than men's education. Kingdon in Gender gap in India's schools and Schultz in page 217 of Why Governments Should Spend More to Educate Girls argue that this is one of the reasons which discourage parents from investing their daughters’ education. While, the rates of social return and efficiency approaches identify one of the critical reasons that discourages parents from investing in their daughter’s education, these approaches do not adequately explain other reasons. They tend to give rather simplistic explanation that if market pays well then parents will send their daughters to school. They treat the household as ‘unitary’ structure unaffected by power dynamics. That is, as long as outside parameters benefit the household, the household will make a pro women’s education choice - when returns from schooling improves, household will get women educated and deploy their labour outside and vice-versa. This limitation arises because the rates of social return theory and efficiency approach tend to see the relationship between education and social returns as value free. It fails to take note of gender bias that affect the actualisation of benefits from education. This limitation can be evidenced by the fact that though literacy level has gone up in states like Punjab and Haryana, which also happen to be the richest in the country, and in Gujarat and Maharashtra, which are among those with the fastest economic growth, education does not seem to be a major factor in improving economic status and condition of women. Women in these states continue to be segregated in the informal sector and low wage jobs. Kanbur suggests that the rates of social return theory and efficiency approach also assume that credit constraints, land inequality, and a range of other external factors that constrain households are constant and do not have a gender dimension (9-10). Even if one were to accept that by adopting this approach wage differentials could be reduced, it does not reflect on gender differential of income indicator. Higher wages do not mean that women would have access to their own wages or they themselves benefit from the social returns.

The strength of the social returns perspective is in its ‘sensemaking’ efficiency arguments which can justify governments investing in women’s education than men’s. As discussed earlier, these approaches did influence the national governments as well as international bodies and led to investment in educational infrastructure development. But Longwe points out that hardly any substantial change in women’s situation was achieved (23-24). One of the major reasons for this is pointed out by Moser in Gender Planning in the Third World: Meeting Practical and Strategic Needs. These approaches define production in a rather limited way and do not value reproductive and community work. A fallout of this understanding is the assumption that women’s time is unengaged and readily available for ‘marketable productive’ work. If at all, these approaches increased women’s responsibilities by seeing household labour of women as surplus. Unless these issues are addressed in the educational policies and programmes, programmes to promote basic education will continue burdening women by a blanket reinforcement of traditional role divisions and ever increasing expectations of paid work in the economy and activism and participation in schemes like those under Integrated Child Development Programme.

A case for the efficiency approach is made possible by its finding that the highest returns to schooling occur at the primary school level and rates tend to decline at secondary and higher educational levels. This general pattern of diminishing returns to schooling justifies expanding primary education to begin with in low income countries where it may not be cost efficient to make large investments in higher education or to divide the investment equally in overall distribution of schooling. Though the need to invest in primary education is hard to refute, the limitation of the efficiency approach could be understood in terms of the gap between the policy objective and programme strategies that are adopted to achieve policy objectives. So completion of primary education by girls might be a policy objective but a programme developed to achieve this objective will not be a choice for parents as long as it does not address the need to link poverty, education and gender constraints. Leach points out that acquisition of literacy does not automatically lift people out of poverty nor does availability of education opportunity increases school enrolment, retention and socio-cultural worth of women (11). It is, therefore, important that the programmes developed to achieve the policy objective use strategies that link education with poverty, knowledge and skills, and gender constraints. In most parts of India, curricula and teaching materials remain gender-biased to a great extent. There is very little initiative from the side of the state, which dominates primary education, to make education sensitive to the specific needs of women which would help them gain economic and social equality. There is hardly any attempt to link primary education with non-traditional vocational skills. The tendency to ignore relevant science that relate to women's work experience and failure to give recognition to roles women play in agricultural and other traditional production practically means that the available education does not offer opportunities to upscale women’s knowledge and skills in productive work. This state of education deprives women of education and training that they could apply to improve their daily lives and enhance their employment opportunities in non-traditional areas.
The rates of social return theory can be supported from the perspective that often people pursue education not for its intrinsic worth but for improving their income earning capacities. From this perspective, the social return theory’s concern with economic productivity sounds valid. However, as pointed out by Gordon, empirical findings suggest that this approach could help perpetuate traditional gender division of labour by not challenging it (53-58). The kind of vocational training that is given to women in different parts of India, (eg, tailoring, cooking, and so on) are welfare oriented and are not effective in promoting women’s participation in formal economy. Though the social returns perspective highlights the linkage between education and job market, it does not explain why feminization of lower level jobs in the economy is growing. Similarly, it also fails to take into account other non-productive and non-economic factors which may increase the demand for education. For example, Jeffery & Jeffery’s study in India find that the changes in the eligibility pattern for marriage have led to increased demand for both primary and higher education.

According to Schultz, ”social externalities associated with reduced child mortality, increased child anthropometric capacities, […] decreased fertility are all linked more positively to women's schooling than they are to men's schooling, and these outcomes are valued by society” (215). The potential of arguing from this point is that since these outcomes are valued by the society they would make efficient arguments to invest in women’s education. This argument can be critiqued from Moser’s perspective of strategic gender needs or the needs which must be met to address women’s subordinate position in society (Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training 39). Schultz’s argument does not advocate changing existing roles rather it reinforces them and therefore sees women as mere tools of development.

Schultz points to the potential of rates of social returns theory to highlight how it could yield more taxes for the national economies. He argues that with more educated women working more hours in the market would lead to enlargement of the tax base of the tax base which also opens the possibility of reducing existing tax distortions (215-216). However, this potential could become functional only if there is substantial change in women’s current circumstances and gender roles to allow them to get quality education and high wage jobs in the market. The nature and quality of current education opportunities available to women remain conventional. Usually girls do not get either the time or the opportunity to get technical and professional education which is more valued in the job market. Margolis & Lazarus in The way Girls Learn: A Patchwork Quilt of Impressions Gordon in Girls Cannot Think As Boys Do: Socialising Children Through the Zimbabwean School System and The Southern Natal Gender Committee hold the opinion that the educational systems tend to help retain male control over technology. The near absence of a relation between primary education and science that takes into account gender needs from the educational scene in India impacts women’s capacity to participate in advanced study in science and technology. This relation is essential for preparing women to participate in advanced study and to take an active role in the technological and industrial development. The rates of social return and efficiency approach have a narrow perspective towards education for women. Their scope is not wide enough to encompass a diverse approach which is needed to address the linkages between education, gender needs and economic development.

There is a need to recognize education’s connections with factors like ideas, beliefs and attitudes. As suggested by Longwe in page 23-26 of Education for women’s empowerment or schooling for women’s subordination? and Malhotra & Mather in page 604-607 of Do Schooling and Work Empower Women in Developing Countries? Gender and Domestic Decisions in Sri Lanka, there is a need to have simultaneous processes of education and curricula intervention, poverty redressal to meet the practical needs of women, and empowerment of women by removing access barriers, challenging gender norms, socio-cultural awareness, and structural changes. These are essential to help women exercise control over their lives, bodies, take on leadership roles, make decisions within and outside home and enable them to use their skills to negotiate more effectively and to deal with structures of power. These processes need to be supported by proactive policies which must recognize that strategic and practical gender needs are prerequisites for each other and one cannot be withheld till the other is met.

Conclusion

Incorporation of the gender mainstreaming concept in education and development is a relatively new phenomenon. The gradual emergence of the human capital theory and the rates of social return theory in the 1960s and 1970s made the world more receptive to the idea of `women' as a distinct rather than residual category which made its appearance in international education and development in the 1980s. Recognition of the role of women in economic development was a notable accomplishment in the discourse of education and development and a major achievement of feminist movements and theorists. It led to feminist theorizing on economics, the development a number of feminist approaches to education and most importantly it led to critical examination of gender inequalities in education.

Up till now the education intervention on women’s equality has been influenced by the social returns perspective insofar it is aimed at bringing economic output of women at par with men and improving women’s reproductive efficiency. Consequently, the reduction of gender differential in education has been the articulated goal in all the internationally agreed development targets. National development agendas, too, have mainly tried to address the ‘stereotypical deprivations’ of women, like, health, infant mortality, family planning, school enrolment, market based economic equality, etc.

The empirical results and assessments of social returns pointed to the association between education and gender bias. These findings reveal that socio-economic development does not necessarily mean gender development. I argue, alongside efficiency based initiatives, for gender development to happen as part and parcel of socio-economic development, variables such as socio-political empowerment of women, changes in the social structures, and so on that directly influence women’s ability to exercise agency must be recognized. The gradual realization that reduction of gender differential in education is closely connected to women’s capabilities as agents of change has paved the emergence of empowerment and mainstreaming approaches to education. In order to give priority to long term and seemingly intractable gender issues, gender equality goals must be incorporated in macro-level and SWAps. But compliance to macro-level policies and SWAps will come if the agenda is owned and led by local stakeholders and has an inclusive approach embracing governments, lenders and donors and civil society. But difficulty in mainstreaming gender, as Terry opines that that as long as men dominate the policy discourse ‘efficiency is likely to take precedence over equity’ (qtd in Leach 14). As long as the agenda to educate women will continue to be guided by a desire to improve social returns, nature and the content of education will be geared to maximize economic and reproductive benefits from women’s labour without much change in gender relations. Though the rates of social return theory, managed to convince donors, lenders and governments to invest in girls education to an extent, it does not offer even scant regard for improving women’s position at home or outside.

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