Editorial Overview

Setting the Stage for Discussion

In a 1990 article for New York Review of Books, Professor Amartya Sen coined one of his most famous phrases—‘Missing Women’—that not only inspired a sustained line of research but also made public a problem that was shamefully hidden away from academic discourse. His observation was that Asia had 100 million women fewer than Europe and America, and this anomaly could only be explained by purposeful acts of causing premature death to women (Sen, 1990). Sen’s observation was crucial, as both India and China, world’s two most populous nations, presented (and they still present) a highly skewed sex ratio. India has 1.13 boys per girl (under 15), whereas China has 1.17 boys per girl; the natural rate should be about 1.05 boys per girl.

Subsequent to Sen’s 1990 article, academic researchers tried to identify how much of this gender imbalance is ‘man made’ and how much is due to diseases and other factors. Indeed a large body of work pointed out that disease and inadequate health care (in general) could account for a sizeable proportion of the missing women (Anderson & Ray, 2010; Oster, 2005). For example, Oster (2005) argued that mothers infected by hepatitis B virus were more likely to give birth to a boy child than a girl and this fact alone could account for many missing women. Anderson and Ray (2010) claimed that most of the missing women belong to older age groups (due to diseases) and not younger females.

While the above explanations are compelling, a large proportion of the missing women would still require a completely different explanation, which had to be a combination of female foeticide and disproportionately higher neonatal deaths of baby girls, as Sen (1992, 2003) argued repeatedly and persuasively. Female foeticide or killing of newborn girls is an instance of violence inflicted at an earliest possible age. Given the history of son preference and daughter aversion in Asia, it is not surprising that many parents would take recourse to such inhuman acts. However, a caveat is in order. Careful studies of Indian and Chinese data show that daughter aversion or son preference is not as pervasive as it is made out to be; it is in fact conditional on the first child being a girl (Das Gupta, 2005). In families with multiple children, where the first child is a girl the probability of the second child being a boy is disproportionately higher, so much so that the excess probability cannot be explained, except by human manipulation. But if the first child was a boy, the probability of the second child being a boy is not higher than the natural rate.

The special section on ‘Violence and Discrimination against Women’ of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics is spread over two issues. In the previous issue (27.2), we highlighted the problem of violence against women through four in-depth research articles. As continuation of that theme, three more articles are being published in the current issue. One of these will follow the ‘missing women’ trail and examine how modern economy and market institutions are coming together to facilitate easier and cheaper killing of the unborn females. Historically, market forces accompanying the rise of capitalism in the West have liberated women from domestic servitude, as industries needed steady supplies of cheap labour. However, in the context of India, deep-rooted prejudices and daughter aversion have distorted the market forces to perpetuate gender imbalance.

That market forces have worked against women is not unique to female foeticide. We know that in the past two decades, female participation in the labour market has fallen, which is somewhat unexpected in a rapidly growing economy. Are the market forces providing negative incentives to women (such as low wage, hazardous work, unsafe environment) or are women preferring leisure, as the family income has risen substantially (unleashing strong income effect)? We do not have a clear answer to this. The article by Amaral, Bandyopadhyay and Sensarma (2015) identifies certain types of hazards increasing for poor women working in rural employment guarantee programmes. Market opportunities also encourage women to migrate and search for higher incomes, and in turn overcome the traditional barriers imposed on them. However, the search process is not free of dangers. One of the articles in this issue discusses the case of the Indian female migrants working in the Gulf countries and their vulnerability against extortions by touts and physical abuse by their employers. Once again the same question arises. Do market forces expose women to additional risks and hazards?

One answer can be that it is not the market which is betraying women, rather it is the state or the society that is failing to adapt with new market realities and not enabling women to take full advantage of the market opportunities. In the case of female foeticides, law is not adequately enforced, nor has the society changed its attitude to bestow equal value to a girl child. Ensuring women’s safety at the workplace is the paramount responsibility of the state. But it seems that we are unable to come up with appropriate institutional responses to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing market economy that we live in.

Introducing the Articles in This Issue of the Special Section

The article by Banerjee and Biswas, ‘Globalization and Violence against Women: The Missing Girls of India’, provides a feminist economic perspective on India’s female foeticide epidemic. With globalization, modern medical facilities have reached the nook and corner of the country much faster than smartphones and Coca-Cola, and daughter-averse parents are taking advantage of such facilities to kill female foetuses in the womb to ensure ‘the control of patriarchy on women, born or unborn’. The authors study the census data to note that the number of girls (0–6 years) per 1000 boys (0–6 years) has drastically fallen from 962 in 1981 to 919 in 2011. Some of the states have recorded the worst declines in child sex ratio. In Delhi, the sex ratio has fallen from 926 in 1981 to 809 in 2011, and the corresponding figures for Punjab and Haryana are 908 and 843, and 902 and 831, respectively. Even a more prosperous and socially progressive state like Maharashtra has only 880 girls per 1000 boys (as of 2011). This epidemic-like problem has been witnessed over a large part of India, and in particular, North and Central India, thanks to the easily accessible and progressively cheaper technology of sex-selective abortion, in which the market has played a vital role in turning the Indian economy even more gender biased, instead of creating a level playing field for women.

These observations are interesting. To put in perspective, China has 833 girls per 1000 boys as of 2010. However, for China, perhaps the dreadful ‘one child policy’ is largely responsible, which is likely to be reversed in future and the sex ratio may improve. However, for India, the issue is linked to the dowry system and society’s bias against the daughter in general.

The article by Paul, ‘Intimate Partner Violence and Women’s Help-seeking Behaviour: Evidence from India’, looks into the problem of women’s help-seeking behaviour following spousal abuse or violence. Generally, the state intervention to gender violence occurs through the legal axis. By defining certain intimate partner activities as abuse (verbal, emotional or physical) and thus making them illegal, women are empowered to seek legal remedy, which in turn should withhold men back from committing such abuse in the first place. But with this powerful incentive, comes a serious dilemma. Pursuing the legal option might mean an end to the marriage and the woman must need enough financial independence to support herself and her children (if any), not to mention the social stigmas that often come with marital separation. Therefore, in reality, women may seek informal support from friends and families, instead of going through the formal route.

Using the National Family Health Survey III data of 2005–2006 covering 109,041 households and 124,385 women aged 15–49, Paul tries to determine the factors that improve the probability of seeking help by a woman after experiencing abuse. One interesting finding is that the prospect of seeking help substantially improves with age being in the late thirties or early forties, than at a very young or old age. This may indicate a threshold effect, in which abuse needs to recur up to a critical point at which help is sought. It may also be the case that at that age, children are fairly grown up, and so the cost of any likely marital separation is far reduced. Her study also finds that sufficient education (such as 12 years of education) is almost a necessary condition for woman to seek out formal help. As education is a key requirement for economic independence, this finding is along the expected line. It is also noted that among Hindus, the probability of seeking formal help is significantly higher than in minority groups.

The final article by Kodoth, ‘Structural Violence against Emigrant Domestic Workers and Survival in the Middle East: The Effects of Indian Emigration Policy’, provides a case study of South Indian women who have tried to escape poverty by going abroad to work as domestic workers in Gulf countries despite the dangers of a perilous journey that is fraught with their exposure to unscrupulous touts, abusive employers and unsympathetic bureaucracy at home and abroad. India is one of the few countries that restricts unskilled out-migration by requiring the workers to secure ‘emigration clearance’ from a designated official, ostensibly to protect them from international trafficking. Sadly, the vigilance of the government ends at home and no support is provided once the workers reach foreign soils. Bureaucratic apathy and complex procedures leave overseas workers high and dry if they run into problems. Women workers engaged in the domestic sector do not have the safety of the company of fellow Indian workers as male workers do in public businesses and industries, and thus they face a far greater risk of being abused by their employers. The author argues for reforming the emigration clearance system and calls for a more worker-oriented gender-sensitive support system at the destination countries, very much like countries such as Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

Conclusion

Seven articles of the special section on ‘Violence and Discrimination against Women’ spread over two issues of the journal have touched upon several critical issues that require substantive and interdisciplinary research. While the articles written by economists have mostly been quantitative, the case study-based contributions of sociologists help us understand some of the complexities that cannot be rendered quantitative simplification. This is why research on this theme needs interdisciplinary collaboration.

Two themes have emerged from these articles that are worthy of mention. One is the dynamic and intergenerational aspect of domestic abuse, and the other is the misalignment of individual incentives and market opportunities. Both these areas hold tremendous potential for future research. In the case of domestic abuse, the timing, scale and the nature of public intervention are all very important. In the second case, response has to be in terms of building new institutions that will enable women to participate in the labour market safely and not shy away from it.