Gender Gap to Asset Ownership- How Data Miss Key Details on 50% Indians

Business Standard Gender gap to asset ownership: How data miss key details on 50% Indians

India ranked 112th of 153 countries on the Global Gender Gap Index 2020, a drop of four places since 2018.

Lack of sex-disaggregated data and other gender-related gaps in Indian government’s official data sources is making it difficult to track issues such as girls’ and women’s employment, asset ownership, health, sanitation and education, our analysis shows. This results in limited understanding of gender issues and poorly designed policies and programmes.

In the second story in our Data Gaps series, we examine which women-specific data points are not collated or made public, and how this makes women invisible and hinders progress towards gender-equality goals.

India ranked 112th of 153 countries on the Global Gender Gap Index 2020, a drop of four places since 2018. India was among the five worst-performing countries on the economic participation, opportunity, and health and survival sub-indices of the index. Gaps in data mean increased difficulty in identifying existing gender disparities and formulating policies to close the gap.

In India, the gaps in data exist due to three major reasons, our analysis found: (i) most surveys look at household-level data but do not assess women’s ownership of assets or their access to basic amenities in the household--asset ownership is an indicator of the power an individual holds within a household; (ii) many crucial data points are not sex-disaggregated and are not periodic; (iii) definitions are unclear and underreporting is routine, particularly in cases of crimes against women.

Gender data gaps are prevalent across the world, says a 2018 brief by UN Women. Only a little over a third (37%) of the 126 countries had a coordinating body for gender statistics, found a 2012 review; only 13% countries had a regular dedicated budget for gender statistics. The brief emphasised the need to plug data gaps in order to remove gender biases in concepts and methodologies, and ensure that policies and interventions address the “lived reality of women and girls”.