CONTENTS:- Preface; 1. The gender divide: myth and reality; 2. Women in India: the endangered human species; 3. Female literacy--achievements and challenges; 4. Magnitude and manifestation of girl child labour; 5. Women's labour force participation and employment prospects; 6. Gender and health; 7. Women's subordination and dimensions of violence; 8. Gender and ageism: the pangs of female elderly; 9. Prospects of gender equality in India: concluding observations;
DESCRIPTION
This book uses official data, for the period 1950 to 1999 assess the quantitative dimensions of women development supplemented by qualitative information so that the analysis is objective. It highlights the discrimination suffered by women from womb to tomb starting from the declining sex ratio due to female feticide and infanticide and ending with the pangs of elderly women. Male female comparison enables to gain insights into the magnitude of the gap and appreciate the need for women entered development policy. The socio-economic and cultural factors which impinge on women's education, the gross underestimation of women's work due to inadequacies in the definition of concepts like 'work' 'labour' etc., the high opportunity cost of seeking health care by women in view of their subordinate position in the family, and the violence suffered by them because they are women--form the subject matter of this book. Though these issues have been discussed by other scholars as well. I have not come across any book which deals with women's problem in a quantitative way, that too for all-India, across the states (with interstate comparison) and for Tamil Nadu (with inter-district comparisons).
