Revision Sheet

SOCIAL JUSTICE &

GENDER ISSUES

Economic & Social Issues

Revision Notes

for RBI Grade B Exam

Social Justice and Gender Issues ESI Revision Sheets

RBI GRADE B REVISION SHEETS

ESI SECTION
SOCIAL JUSTICE & GENDER ISSUE
Gender Inequality:
• Gender inequality is the social process by which men and women are not treated
as equals.
• The treatment may arise from distinctions regarding biology, psychology, or
cultural norms. Some of these distinctions are empirically-grounded while others
appear to be socially constructed.

Causes of Gender Inequality:

1. Uneven access to education
2. Lack of employment equality
3. Job segregation
4. Lack of legal protections
5. Poor medical care
6. Lack of religious freedom.
7. Societal mind-sets

Gender Inequality in India:

• Gender inequality subsists in Indian economy and prevails in all sectors of life like
health, education, economics and politics.
• Men have always had the upper hand in these fields, depicting how deeply
patriarchy is entrenched in India.
• Various international gender inequality indices rank India differently on each of
these factors, as well as on a composite basis, and these indices are controversial.
• Gender inequalities, and their social causes, impact India's sex ratio, women's
health over their lifetimes, their educational attainment, and economic
conditions.
• Globally girls have higher survival rates at birth, are more likely to be
developmentally on track, and just as likely to participate in preschool.
• India is the only large country where more girls die than boys. Girls are also more
likely to drop out of school.
Social Justice and Gender Issues ESI Revision Sheets

• In India girls and boys experience adolescence differently. While boys tend to
experience greater freedom, girls tend to face extensive limitations on their
ability to move freely and to make decisions affecting their work, education,
marriage and social relationships.
• As girls and boys age the gender barriers continue to expand and continue into
adulthood where we see only a quarter of women in the formal workplace.

SOLUTION:
• By increasing the value of girls we can collectively contribute to the achievement
of specific results, some short-term (increasing access to education, reducing
anaemia), others medium-term (ending child marriage) and others long-term
(eliminating gender-biased sex selection).
• Changing the value of girls has to include men, women and boys.
• It has to mobilize many sectors in society. Only when society’s perception
changes, will the rights of all the girls and all the boys in India be fulfilled.
• Empowering girls requires focused investment and collaboration. Providing girls
with the services and safety, education and skills they need in daily life can
reduce the risks they face and enable them to fully develop and contribute to
India’s growth.
• Girls have an especially difficult time accessing life-saving resources, information
and social networks in their daily life.
• Access to programmes specifically tailored to the needs of girls – with a focus on
education and developing life skills, ending violence and incorporating the needs
and contributions of girls from vulnerable groups, including those with
disabilities, can strengthen the resilience of millions of girls.
• Long-term solutions designed with and for girls can further strengthen this
resilience and be a pathway of transformational and lifelong opportunity for girls.
• All girls, especially adolescent girls, need platforms to voice the challenges they
face in everyday life and explore the solutions that work for them so they can
build better futures for themselves and their communities.

MEASURING GENDER INEQUALITY:

• The Human Development Report (HDR) is an annual milestone published by the
Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP).
• As part of this report, Gender Inequality Index (GII) is brought out.

Gender Inequality Index:

1) The GII is an inequality index. It measures gender inequalities in three important
aspects of human development:
Social Justice and Gender Issues ESI Revision Sheets

1. Reproductive health, measured by maternal mortality ratio and

adolescent birth rates;
2. Empowerment, measured by proportion of parliamentary seats occupied
by females and proportion of adult females and males aged 25 years and
older with at least some secondary education;
3. Economic status, expressed as labour market participation and measured
by labour force participation rate of female and male populations aged 15
years and older.
2) The higher the GII value the more disparities between females and males and the
more loss to human development.

GENDER GAP INDEX:

1) The WEF published its first gender gap index in 2006.
2) The Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 153 countries on their progress towards
gender parity in four dimensions:
1. Economic Participation and Opportunity,
2. Educational Attainment,
3. Health and Survival and
4. Political Empowerment
3) The Index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between
women and men on health, education, economy and politics.
4) Over the Index, the highest possible score is 1 (equality) and the lowest possible
score is 0 (inequality).

Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI):

• The OECD Development Centre’s Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI)
measures discrimination against women in social institutions across 180
countries.
• By taking into account laws, social norms and practices, the SIGI captures the
underlying drivers of gender inequality with the aim to provide the data
necessary for transformative policy-change.
• The SIGI is also one of the official data sources for monitoring SDG 5.1.1
“Whether or not legal frameworks are in place to promote, enforce and monitor
gender equality and women’s empowerment.”

NOTE:

• For more details of the index and the subsequent editions of the index, please
refer Current Affairs section of the course.
Social Justice and Gender Issues ESI Revision Sheets

Legal and Constitutional safeguards against gender inequality:

Constitutional safeguards:
• Indian Constitution provides for positive efforts to eliminate gender inequality.
• Article 15 of the Constitution provides for prohibition of discrimination on
grounds of sex also apart from other grounds such as religion, race, caste or place
of birth.
• Article 15(3) authorizes the Sate to make any special provision for women and
children.
• The Directive Principles of State Policy also provides various provisions which are
for the benefit of women and provides safeguards against discrimination.

Legal safeguards:
• Various protective Legislations have also been passed by the Parliament to
eliminate exploitation of women and to give them equal status in society.
• The Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987 was enacted to abolish and make punishable the
inhuman custom of Sati.
• The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 to eliminate the practice of dowry.
• The Special Marriage Act, 1954 to give rightful status to married couples who
marry inter-caste or inter-religion.
• Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Bill
(introduced in Parliament in 1991, passed in 1994 to stop female infanticide and
many more such Acts.
• Section 304-B was added to the Indian Penal Code, 1860 to make dowry-death or
bride-burning a specific offence punishable with maximum punishment of life
imprisonment.
Social Justice and Gender Issues ESI Revision Sheets

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