Implement women's reservation now

The Indian Parliament has passed a Women’s Reservation Bill, known as Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, reserving one-third of seats in the lower house of parliament and state assemblies for women. Despite its historical significance for women’s political leadership, the bill faces a prolonged and uncertain implementation process, and the timeframe for its implementation is not before 2029. Why delay the implementation of the new women’s reservation bill?

The long delay has been linked to the alignment of the new bill with the redrawing of the boundaries of parliament and state assembly constituencies and the increased population of India. However, its implementation should not be delayed, as political representation of women is not a new agenda in India. India has a long history and experience in implementing political representation of women.

India pioneered women’s political representation in 1993 with the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, reserving a third of seats in local panchayat elections. With four decades of experience in political reservation for women in local elections, there’s a compelling case for introducing the bill sooner rather than later.

The impact of women’s political representation in local elections is well documented. States implementing the Act observed a significant surge in new women-owned businesses and associated employment, approximately 40 per cent post-reservations. Political representation in Rajasthan and West Bengal led to increased investment in drinking water and roads in response to complaints by local women. The political participation of women strengthened the administration of state transfer programmes, local public goods such as educational and medical facilities, oversight of local infrastructure (water, sewage, roads, etc.), and the monitoring of civil servants.

The political representation of women not only reduced social prejudice, oppression, and exploitation of women in local power structures, but it also became a new driver of economic growth. Economic growth came in many forms: the removal of cultural and political barriers to the participation of women in labour markets, reduced discrimination in wage differentials, and changes in management practices that have promoted talented women into leadership roles.

Given the huge benefits from political representation of women in local elections seen over the last four decades, increasing their representation from local to higher levels should have come much earlier.

An earlier implementation gains urgency considering India’s persistent gender disparities, ranking poorly in most global gender indices. Women continue to have the highest incidence of poverty, the worst education and health conditions, the highest likelihood of being victims of violence, and are paid less when they perform the same or equal-value jobs as men. Despite India being the fastest-growing large economy in the world, the female labour force participation rate has declined during the last two decades and remains well below several sub-Saharan African countries.
India’s experience is unlike the East Asian experience, where increased female labour force participation played a role in the East Asian miracle. Some southern states in India, like Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, have shown an improving trend in gender parity and business ownership by women. But the female establishment ownership rate remains extremely low in states like Bihar, Haryana, and Gujarat.

India’s growth experience was different compared to East Asia, as India grew with the service revolution. However, India’s fast-growing services sector has also not shown improvements in gender equality. Indeed, gender disparities are worse in the services sector compared to the manufacturing sector in India. Female ownership shares in services barely reach 10 per cent in states with the highest female ownership rates, like in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh. Female ownership share in the services sector remains much lower in states like Rajasthan, Bihar, Orissa, and Uttar Pradesh, at less than 6 per cent or less. Gender disparities remain worse in rural areas due to poor physical and human infrastructure, which becomes a constraint on starting a business and job creation.

Why implement the bill now? A faster implementation could boost India’s GDP by nearly $1 trillion. Increased political representation of women will improve investments in both physical and human infrastructure.

Poor physical infrastructure disproportionately affects women, hindering mobility and safety. Lack of access to certain types of infrastructure services (transport, access to water, and sanitation) affects women more, as women bear a larger share of the time and responsibility for household maintenance and care activities. Improved infrastructure in rural areas and Tier 2 cities will reduce these burdens, enabling women to focus on better job opportunities and entrepreneurial activities. The new bill has the potential to improve not only the physical infrastructure but also the human infrastructure.

India’s human infrastructure, especially investments in education, is seriously lagging. India will not be able to sustain high growth just through investments in physical infrastructure, as it needs skills to sustain growth and create more jobs, especially for women. Gender inequality in education is a big problem in India, as 62 per cent of women receive no schooling compared to 31 per cent for men.

Despite recent economic advances, India’s gender balance remains among the lowest in the world. Improving this balance is an important step for India’s development and its achievement of greater economic growth.

For India to become a $5 trillion economy, women’s political representation must play a pivotal role sooner rather than later. Empowering half of the potential workforce has significant economic benefits beyond promoting gender equality. While achieving economic equality sometimes requires tough choices (e.g., progressive taxation that may discourage effort), the opposite is true for improving gender equality.

India’s new growth stimulus will come from unlocking female political representation, which will promote a more dynamic economy, higher environmental governance, and better human development indicators. Women invest more in the future than men do. Simply put, empowering half of the potential workforce has significant economic benefits beyond promoting gender equality.

(The writer has worked for the World Bank, taught economics at Oxford
University, and is a senior fellow at the Pune Internal Development Centre)