The ‘other half’ isn’t really doing so well

By themselves, the figures may sound impressive. Between 1990 and 2017, India’s life expectancy at birth increased by 10.9 years, mean years of schooling (not counting years repeated) increased by 3.4 years and expected years of schooling by 4.7 years. India’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita rose by about 266.6 per cent between 1990 and 2017. That may sound like great progress, but actually there’s still a long way to go.

“Over the past 25 years, there has been some improvement in the Human Development Index (HDI) in India, but not nearly as much as is required,” says Reetika Khera, development economist at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Not a healthy picture

“Much of the improvement is driven by rising incomes, not health and education — the other two components of the HDI. The lack of public commitment to health and education in India is very worrying,” she notes.

She adds that 33 per cent of Indian children are enrolled in private schools at the primary stage, whereas the world average is 17 per cent, and the average in OECD countries is around 10 per cent.

“Government spending on health is very low (just about 1 per cent of GDP) in absolute and relative terms, and to the extent that it has been rising, the focus is on tertiary care rather than primary care, on curative care rather than prevention. This means that the government is not around to heal minor wounds, and only steps in when it gets so bad that an amputation is required,” says Khera.

‘Tracking Universal Health Coverage: 2017 Global Monitoring Report’, a report by the World Bank and the World Health Organization, says that 4.2 per cent and 4.6 per cent households in India, based on two different poverty lines, are impoverished by spending on health. Given that there are about 24 crore households in India, that would mean that around a crore households or a population of nearly 5 crore are impoverished. In these cases, a household is forced by an adverse health event to divert spending away from food, shelter and clothing, to an extent that its spend on these items is reduced below the level indicated by the poverty line.

Education, a distant dream

Human Resource and Development Ministry (HRD) data show that the overall vacancies of government teachers in India at the elementary level (Std I to VIII) is 18 per cent, and at the secondary level (Std IX and X) is 15 per cent.

That isn’t all. Universal education remains a distant dream, but the lack of education for girls is even more alarming. Shockingly, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) reveals that only 69 per cent of females aged six and over have ever attended school. And only one-third of women completed seven years of schooling or less. Around 13 per cent completed eight to nine years of schooling.

The number of girls going to school declines further in secondary classes. Only 10 per cent of women completed 10-11 years of schooling while 14 per cent completed 12 or more years of schooling. The median number of years of schooling completed is higher for males (6.9 years) than for females (4.4 years). Girls in the lowest wealth quintile have completed a median of 0 years of schooling, compared with a median of 9.1 years for females in the highest wealth quintile.

Slow progress in HDI

So, the fact is that we have very limited achievements to boast of. Among 189 countries, India moved just one spot up in the HDI to 130 from 131, according to the latest rankings of 189 countries by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The UNDP’s HDI is a summary measure for assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living.

A long and healthy life is measured by life expectancy. Knowledge levels are measured by mean years of education among the adult population, access to learning and knowledge by expected years of schooling for children of school-entry age. The standard of living is measured by Gross National Income (GNI) per capita expressed in constant 2011 international dollars converted using purchasing power parity (PPP) conversion rates.

India’s HDI value in 2017 was 0.640, which put the country in the medium human development category. Among other Asian countries, Sri Lanka and Maldives are far ahead of India, at ranks 76 and 101, respectively. Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Ireland and Germany lead the rankings globally.

Future focus

According to a World Economic Forum report titled ‘Future of Consumption in Fast-Growth Consumer Markets’, three critical sectors need to be addressed. “Skill development and future-focussed employment generation will be critical to direct the potential of India’s young workforce,” the report says.

It adds: “As nearly 10 million to 12 million working age persons get added to India annually over the next decade, it will be critical to provide them with gainful and more formal employment and reduce the skills-gap that exists today.”

The second challenge will be social and economic inclusiveness in rural India and the challenge would be a response to the challenges of creating a sustainable and healthy future through better access to healthcare, reduction in pollution and better urban planning to reduce congestion to improve the quality of life. All of these are gargantuan challenges.

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