Education, Health and Women’s Empowerment – Kerala’s Experience in Linking the Triad

K.R. Lakshmy Devi[*]

Abstract

Empowerment of women by means of income generating activities is a new orthodoxy in development discourse which signifies a paradigm shift from ‘ women in development’ to ‘gender and development’ and subsequently to ‘gender empowerment’. Education and health are the two important determinants of women’s economic participation and thus have a powerful influence on their ability to control their environment and their lives. At the same time, education and health are also the two important areas in which persistent gender inequality exist. Taking the cue from Kerala’s experience, this paper is an attempt to hypothesize that better achievements in the areas of education and health can lead to lesser degree of gender inequality and better prospects for women’s economic participation. This in turn paves the way for greater gender development and better empowerment of women.

Key words: Gender Equality, Gender Development, Gender Empowerment


“Women’s empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society including participation in the decision making process and access to power are fundamental for the achievement of equality, development and peace”

(Paragraph 13, Beijing Declaration)

Empowerment of women is a process, a continuum of several interrelated and mutually reinforcing components. UNDP’s Gender In Development Policy (GIDP) has interpreted empowerment in a comprehensive manner. The policy aims at, among other things, providing women with access to empowering facilities like education and training. But, equally important is the provision of good health because good health is an essential prerequisite not only for women’s participation in economic activities but also for their better control of their own lives .The experience of Kerala in this regard is note worthy and holds promise for others to follow the example.

Kerala the tiny state in the southwest corner of the Indian sub continent was very little known outside India even a decade ago. But the state began to draw the attention of researchers from all over the world when the so-called ‘Kerala Model of development’ became a part of the broad global debate about the ideal pattern of development in the ‘third world’. If the process of development is to be assessed ultimately in terms of what it does to its people, Kerala has every reason to be euphoric. Experience shows that there is no direct correspondence between the economic growth of a nation and the quality of life of its people. Countries and regions with high levels of economic growth are not necessarily those with high levels of social attainment. On the other hand countries and regions with low economic profile may turn out to be providers of better and equitable social gains/opportunities to its people. Kerala provides the best example of the latter. The development experience of the state of Kerala powerfully picturises how even economically poor states could transform the lives of its people and attain high levels of social development. This tiny state with a per capita income of one sixtieth of that of the United States of America has achieved very high levels of social development, mainly in terms of health and education, which compare favourably with that of the U.S averages.

In attempting to document the reasons behind the success of the Kerala model, researchers have drawn attention to the state’s history of progressive redistribution measures like land reforms, and a wide network of the public distribution system (Franke and Chassin, 1995). Beyond the redistribution aspects, many researchers find comfort in attributing Kerala’s development to historical factors, the welfare oriented policies of the state government especially with regard to education and a generous minimum wage, and the role of a socially engaged population (See, Kapur, 1998 for a summary). Critics of the model on the other hand highlight the paradoxes of social development without economic growth that the Kerala experience has become synonymous with (Tharamangalam, 2003). Despite the plethora of literature on the sustainability or the lack thereof in the Kerala story, very few studies have chosen to highlight the accomplishments of women in the human/social development of the state. It is the purpose of this paper to bridge this caveat by explicitly examining the role and agency of women in Kerala’s successes with social growth and through that to their empowerment.

The Role of Women in Kerala’s Development: A preliminary analysis

Kerala has often been referred to as the “land of women.” Historically the state has been quite different from the rest of the country in terms of the indicators of women’s development. Starting with the turn of the last century, the state had a favorable sex ratio (1004) which gradually picked up and reached 1058 in 2001. This should be compared to the all India figures, which in 2001 stood at 933. The 2001 census reflects that Kerala is the only Indian state where the sex ratio is above the equality ratio and is at a hundred year high. Similarly in terms of literacy, life expectancy, and mean age at marriage, women in Kerala score higher than their counterparts elsewhere in the country. In 1950 when India became a democratic republic, the female literacy rate at the national level was merely 7.9 percent. Kerala’s female literacy at the same time was four times higher (32 percent). Similarly in 1950, while the female life expectancy at the national level was only 31.7 years, the same was 42.3 years in Kerala. Thus historically a favorable ground was set for Kerala women while most of the Indian states were deplorably poor in this regard. Perhaps this paved the way for the outstanding achievement of Kerala in terms of women's development, and as a result, the increase in the overall human development. Today Kerala’s female literacy is 88 percent (54 percent at the national level) and life expectancy is 72.4 years (60.4 years at the national level).

The Kerala model of development owes its attributed success to the achievements in the areas of health and education where the contribution of women is particularly significant. Several factors have contributed to the success. The matriarchal system that prevailed among some of the dominant communities in the past, the progressive social movements, government policies, and a historically conducive climate are a few of the other factors that have been identified as contributors to the success of women in Kerala. The traditional matriarchal system gave women the freedom to access several services that have not traditionally been offered to women. Education is among the opportunities offered to females in Kerala. The first girls’ school in the private sector of the state was established in 1819. In the following years, a Government Girls School (1859) and a training school for women teachers (1887) were opened. These early achievements in literacy and education have positively influenced the status of women in the state. Hence in addition to not being outperformed by men in their achievements in education and health areas, women have also played a substantial role in the development of these two sectors in the state. In fact statistics (from different human development reports) indicate that women have contributed more than men in the development of education programs and health sectors of the state. This fact is overlooked by those who analyze and praise the so-called Kerala model. Without the contributions of women in the development of Kerala, the Kerala Model would be nonexistent.

Kerala’s high levels of human development and gender development and the consequent gender empowerment is the result of its achievements in the field of health and education for women. Data given in tables 1 and 2 clearly indicate the better status of women in Kerala in terms of education and health compared to their counterparts in other states. In Table 1, data on four indicators on education namely female literacy, the gender gap in literacy, enrolment and dropout rates in primary schooling level for major Indian states are given. As could be seen from the data, Kerala has the highest female literacy, lowest gender gap in literacy and lowest primary school drop out rates for girls. While literacy rate is affected by a variety of factors like availability of school teachers, availability of equipment and infrastructure, the gender gap in literacy is the result of general attitude of society towards girl’s education. Kerala’s low gender gap in literacy thus points out to its progressive attitude towards girl’s education. Even though Kerala’s enrolment rate for girls in primary schools is not the highest, its drop out rate is the lowest, thereby implying a very high retention rate for girls at the primary school level. Many of the states like Rajastan, U.P., Bihar and West Bengal, have a low enrolment and high dropout rate implying a very low retention rate. This is the dangerous sign because, in such states, very few girls reach higher levels of education. This has a cumulative effect in pushing women to low paid informal sector jobs which do not require any special education or skills. Low education further impacts upon their health through lack of awareness about various health programmes for women. Kerala women’s better educational status perhaps may be a forerunner of their better health status.

The indicators selected to reflect the health status of women are mean age at marriage, total fertility rate, percentage of women with anemia, maternal mortality rate and female infant mortality rate. The data on these are given in Table 2 .The better health status of Kerala women are easily demonstrated by the data presented in Table 2. Kerala has the highest mean age at marriage for women. Early marriage is often interpreted as a negation of women’s autonomy and independence. In many states the mean age at marriage is less than the stipulated minimum of 18 years. Similarly Kerala has the lowest total fertility rate and lowest percentage of women with anemia. Kerala’s maternal mortality rate is also much lower than the all India average even though a few states have still lower rates. Several researchers have pointed out that high maternal mortality is the outcome of general poor conditions of health rather than risks involved with child birth. Kerala’s female infant mortality is significantly lower than all other states. All these clearly indicate the better health status of Kerala women.

Kerala’s achievement in human development is in fact the outcome of the better status of women in terms of education and health .Today, Kerala ranks first among the Indian states in terms of performance on the Human Development Index (HDI), Gender Equality Index (GEI) and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). States such as Haryana and Punjab, which have very high levels of economic development and per capita income have greater gender disparity and lower overall levels of human development compared to Kerala. Also the degree of gender empowerment is much lower in these states compared to Kerala. By contrast states such as Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamilnadu rank high in terms of gender development, as well as overall human development (see Table 3). The National Human Development Report 2001 defines gender development in terms of a newly developed index called the Gender Equality Index (GEI). It gives the attainments of women as a proportion of the attainments of men for the same set of variables used in the construction of HDI. Thus, the average attainments of women were the highest in Kerala ,83% of the attainments of men,while at the national level it was only 68%. It is a clear indication of the fact that Kerala had the highest gender equality in the entire country. These findings prompt the following hypothesis. Economic development per se does not guarantee gender equality and that gender development is a pre-requisite for overall human development. And also gender development in terms of better educational and health attainments leads to greater gender empowerment.

A further analysis of the role and significance of women’s agency on Kerala’s development pattern utilizes the Euclidian Squared Deviations Method. It measures the development distance between the different states with the help of different development indicators. In this analysis, 11 indicators for women’s development for 16 major Indian states are identified and are taken from the National Human Development Reports. The data in Table 4 clearly indicates that women in Kerala experience significantly better living conditions than their counterparts elsewhere in the country. In particular, Table 4 depicts that significantly higher values exist for the state of Kerala on almost all the development indicators, relative to the rest of India. For example, female infant mortality rate (X3) in Kerala is lower at 41 per thousand, than all the other Indian states and also the all India rate of 79 per thousand. The female literacy rate (X7), depicts that Kerala is far above all the other Indian states, at 87.86 percent and also much higher than the all India rate of 54.03 percent.

A Squared Euclidian Coefficient Matrix( Table 5) has also been constructed to better explain the distance between states with regard to women’s development, by using the 11 above defined variables. Thus, the (i,j)th element in the Squared Euclidian Matrix measures the distance with respect to the 11 indicators between the ith and jth States.

Dij 2 = ( X 1i – X 1j ) 2 + (X 2i – X 2j ) 2 + …………..+(X 11i – X 11j ) 2

The cell entries in Table 5 provide a summary measure of the development distance between any two given states, taking all the eleven indicators together. For example, the elements in the 8th column and the 8th row are the summary measures of Kerala’s female development distances from 15 other major states. Clearly, the entries in this column and row are the highest in value, in comparison to the development distances of all other states with only a few exceptions. Women’s achievements in Kerala widely differ from those of their counterparts in other states. Moreover, a comparison of the absolute values of the 11 selected development indicators given in Table 4 for various states, taken individually, also clearly indicates that the values for Kerala are much higher than those of other states. Thus, women in Kerala are far better than their counter parts elsewhere in the country in terms of indicators of health and education. Not only that, they are almost on a par with their male counterparts in this regard.