Capability deprivation of women: are women holding up half the sky in Asia?

Abstract

This paper begins by discussing why gender equality is a necessary condition for economic transformation in the current phase of development. It argues that economic transformation in developing countries will be determined to a greater extent by gender equality than was the case in an earlier phase of transformation in the nineteenth century in non-industrialized countries. This is because gender equality is central to hastening the demographic transition. It goes on to show that the human development status of women in most East and Southeast Asian countries has also hastened that demographic transition. But then it also examines the surviving forms of gender discrimination all over Asia and finds that in South Asia gender discrimination is most severe. These surviving forms of gender discrimination have shown themselves in an adverse sex ratio as well as political non-representation throughout most of the region – most severely in South Asia.