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Ritu Dewan

Department of EconomicsUniversity of Mumbai

dewan.ritu@gmail.com

State, Globalisation, Privatisation.

Revenue & Fiscal deficits: conditionalities, direct taxes, subsidies, budgeting, SEZs, PPP, etc.

Inclusive Growth v/s Inclusive Development & Justice.

Structural contradictions: excess capacity in industry; ‘starved’ agriculture; distorted services.

Goods & Services for high income.2

Patriarchy is a Macroeconomic Construct

Inequalities at micro & meso levels have macro implications

That no structure or policy is gender neutral

Trade, Foreign Investment, Fiscal, Monetary, & Infrastructure systems

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1. Formalisation of rules & mechanisms

2. Deregulation of foreign investment

3. Doha, etc: claims & reality. Egs Loss of special preferences; Banana exports to EU; impact on small farmers; Cotton.

4. WTO & GATS: 12 areas; 161 sub-sectors: (banking, insurance, health, transport, education, energy, telecommunications, tourism)

5. 2,500 bilateral & regional trade & investment agreements

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Women as producers are restricted at production level in terms of technology used & scale of production due to lack of access to various forms of capital.

Resource allocation within economies & households directly impacts women’s productive capacities & also the rank at which they can participate in labour force.

Low labour productivity adversely impacts their skill-sets & loss of competitive edge as economic agents.

Basic is access to ownership, distribution, & control of productive resources of all forms

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Subsidies & dumping

Diluting import restrictions

Free entry of seed & pesticide MNCs

Unregulated input & output markets

Falling production, productivity, food availability

Food ‘security’: USA: 2012: $100 bln for 67 mln popn India: $20 bln for 850 mln persons

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India…12% of GDP; 47% of working men; 73% of women

Assetlessness & Feminisation

Hence, even if trade liberalisation does unlock export opportunities, women farmers do not have the capacity & ability to take advantage of such opportunities.

Post-WTO, many farms have moved to export-oriented commercial cultivation, leading to consolidation of land holdings. As big farms are generally capital-intensive, consolidation of land reduces employment, displacing women first.

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1. Monopoly & Cartelisation

2. Displacement of micro domestic retailers

3. Increasing economic vulnerability of smaller producers

4. Rise in unemployment

(producers; supply chain intermediaries; small retailers (kiranas & hawkers); organised retail workers).

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India…Highest retail density in world

Second largest employer after agriculture

Heavily unorganised at 97 percent (USA=20 pc; Thailand=60 pc; China=80 pc)

Dominance of food processing (99 pc of all food & grocery sales): front & back-end jobs

‘SECTOR OF FIRST & LAST RESORT’

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Motive force for production: profit v/s subsistence

Traditional supplementary activity

Low capital – Low skill

Work & labour patterns: earning, augmenting, saving

Feminisation of retail sector? (Female business ownership rates in unorganised sector)

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Closures, retrenchments, reduced earnings

Open AND disguised unemployment

Micro-accumulators to micro-subsistence seekers

Migration & retail: Rural, Peri-urban, Urban

Paradox of increased participation & de-visibilisation in ‘productive’ activity

Reinforcement of ‘secondary status’; of patriarchy-production interdependency.

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1. Financial v/s Physical Targets

The introduction of an equilibrium between

the two is especially important in the

context of the fact that women generally

take small loans; thus, while physical

targets may be filled, the financial

disbursements constitute an insignificant

amount.

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2. Policies on Medical Insurance

Insurance is not regulated by a uniform policy,

different companies & even different branches

imposing their own rules such as not permitting

single women & men to include parents in family

schemes; the fact that single households pay the

same rates as those applicable to entire families;

etc. 13

3. Pensions & Post-retirement Benefits

Policies relating to pensions are severely

biased against single-headed households,

whether male or female. These benefits

cannot be willed or transferred upon death

to a non-spouse, not even to dependent

parents. 14

Joint v/s Individual Income Tax

Gift Tax: “….Gifts received on certain occasions such as marriage will continue to be totally exempt”.

Property Tax: Gender Differentiated

Increase in PIT for FHHHs, & those with dependents other than children

Tax exemptions for SHGs, Women’s Cooperatives, Producer groups

Taxes on wealth, capital gains & financial transactions

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Indirect Taxation: VAT Success where Tax:GDP ratio is high, &

dependence on international trade is low

Inflationary

Anti Labour-intensive industries, as ratio of selling price is higher compared to capital-intensive; surplus labour economies

Impact on informal economy

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Commodity taxes alter the relative prices of taxed & untaxed goods, & hence transform individual & household decisions about consumption, as well as production and investment decisions.

VAT in particular has a greater anti-women and anti-poor impact, given the fact that these sections typically spend a larger proportion of their income on basic consumption goods than richer households do; low earners therefore pay a higher average tax rate.

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Gender biases in all consumption taxes manifest in

1. choice of commodities & services covered2. consumption & maintenance patterns of

men & women. Egs: a. VAT on processed wheat directly impacts

women, the bias thus not being ‘implicit’. Women, as ‘carers’, now buy grains, and increase time spent on ‘unproductive’ activity.

b. Reduced subsidies on cooking gas & kerosene directly affects health & time use patterns; women pay ‘hidden’ tax as a direct result of changes in macroeconomic policies. 18

Infrastructure ‘fetishism’: Commodity-specific or people-centric

‘Closing the infrastructure gap’: to accelerate growth; to reduce poverty; to reduce inequalities

Physical & hence societal mobility

differential infrastructure constraints exist on men‘s productive roles, and women's economic, domestic & community management roles; also, time poverty.

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Gender Differences:

1. Intensity of transport usage

2. Trip purpose

3. Trip / travel patterns

4. Distance of travel

5. Frequency of travel

6. Mode of transport

7. Mobility constraints.

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Women-Specific:

1. Head-load

2. Local markets

3. Inter- & intra-village roads/paths

4. NMT

5. Walking

6. Security.

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…….Thank you……

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