{"id":9883,"date":"2023-11-28T12:29:57","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T11:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.29forward.com\/bez-kategorii\/breaking-barriers-a-personal-journey-and-the-path-to-equality-anjali-jaideep"},"modified":"2024-06-26T17:25:27","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T15:25:27","slug":"breaking-barriers-a-personal-journey-and-the-path-to-equality-anjali-jaideep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/29forward.com\/pl\/people-at-29forward\/breaking-barriers-a-personal-journey-and-the-path-to-equality-anjali-jaideep","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Barriers: A Personal Journey and the Path to Equality \u2013 Anjali Jaideep"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Anjali Jaideep<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Who I am<\/strong>
Hello there, I am Anjali Jaideep, a 36-year-old Indian woman. My roots are from the state of Kerala and I was born in Bhilai, popularly called the steel city of central India. It is home to Bhilai Steel Plant, the first and largest producer of steel rails in India.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Having lived in India most of my life, I got a chance to experience a variety of Indian cultures up close. Back in my childhood, me and my brother had school friends from various corners of India which allowed us to participate in all kinds of traditional festivities throughout the year. It was a massive blend of traditions like food, music, and rituals in all its glory. 4 years ago, I moved to the UK due to my husband\u2019s onsite deputation. Currently we live in Manchester with our high-spirited 6-year-old son. I am keen on reading and music and I am currently digging into history documentaries as a deliberate effort to keep up with nonfiction.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Gender disparity and its consequences
<\/strong>Before I get into my personal story, I would like to talk about something very important. I want to clarify, that my story unfortunately does not represent a significant part of (female) Indians.<\/p>\n

Gender equality was included in international human rights law by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948. 75 years later, gender equality remains unattained across the world.<\/p>\n

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2022 shows that global gender parity may not be achieved for a further 132 years. Workplace gender parity would take another 151 years. At the current rates of progress, it will take 155 years to close the political empowerment gender gap, 151 years for the economic participation and opportunity gender gap, and 22 years for the educational attainment gender gap. The time to close the health and survival gender gap remains undefined as its progress to parity has stalled.<\/p>\n

According to the World GDP Ranking 2023 list, India is the fifth largest economy in the world. Indian women contribute to 18% of the GDP while constituting 48% of the country\u2019s population. India ranks 135 among 146 countries in WEF\u2019s Global Gender Gap Index for 2022. According to World Bank data, Indian economy has grown more than 10 times since 1990, however, its female workforce participation has fallen from 30 % in 1990 to 19% as of 2021. The difference between the proportion of men and that of women in the labour force has remained at ~40 percentage points over the last four decades. The government of India has reported that only 10% of start-up founders are women, and women fill just 22% of positions in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), despite India having the second-largest AI workforce in the world.<\/p>\n

In India, there has always been a difference in the way men and women have had access to various resources. Gender inequality is a pressing issue in current times. The Indian constitution guarantees equal rights for men and women, but the situation in real life is far from it.<\/p>\n

The International Labor Organisation (ILO) estimates that unpaid care work is amongst the most critical barriers preventing women from joining and remaining in the workforce. This disproportionate burden of unpaid care work creates what is called \u201ctime poverty\u201d, which inhibits women\u2019s ability to dedicate time to paid work and acquire the skills necessary to seek better job opportunities. This experience is not unique to India. Globally, in 2016, 46.7 percent of women attributed their absence from the workforce to domestic duties, as compared to only 6.3 percent of men. On an average, women spend 46 percent of their waking hours on unpaid care work, 8 times the number of hours spent by men.<\/p>\n

According to International Monetary Fund (IMF), reaching gender parity would boost India\u2019s GDP by as much as 27%. The World Bank reports that India\u2019s GDP growth rate would climb above 9% if women had an equitable share of jobs, and that India could boost its growth by 1.5 percentage points per year if just 50% of women could join the workforce. According to Census of India 2011, literacy rate of females is 65.46% compared to males which is 82.14%. Compared to boys, far fewer girls are enrolled in the schools, and many of them drop out.<\/p>\n

India has been ranked low on various indices that measure gender equality \u2013 including economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival; political empowerment; and legal protection Amongst the various causes which are behind this gender inequality, the main ones are poverty, patriarchal setup of the society, lack of education and awareness among women and social customs and practices.<\/p>\n

An underlying factor for such low literacy rates is parents’ perception that education for girls is a waste of resources as their daughters would eventually live with their husbands’ families. Thus, there is a strong belief that due to their traditional duty and role as housewives, daughters would not benefit directly from the education investment.<\/p>\n

The government of India has introduced many policies to tackle this situation. To name a few:<\/p>\n