Measuring Gender Discrimination: The Indian Experience and a new Index

Abstract

The problem of gender disparity exists in India as in many other developing and developed countries. There is a growing concern about the falling female-male ratio (FMR), a very important indicator of this inequality. Overall evaluation of the quality of life in the mode of averages puts little weight on the reality of a falling sex ratio. The standard gender development measures capture this inequality inadequately. The literature records a number of contradictory claims and findings on the subject. Strikingly, this falling FMR over time reflects gross deprivation of nearly fifty percent of our population and given that these deprivations are rising, the increasing value of gender development index is highly misleading, possibly concealing a deteriorating quality of life for females. The basic objective of this paper is to construct an aggregative index which will be able to resolve the problem.