Minister of State Rao Inderjit Singh released the 24th “Women and Men in India 2022” Report on 15 March 2023 in New Delhi.
The Minister of State (I/C) for the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), Rao Inderjit Singh released the 24th issue of publication titled “Women and Men in India 2022” on 15 March 2023 at New Delhi, followed by a seminar.
Addressing on the occasion, Minister of State Rao Inderjit Singh talked about the status of women in ancient India when women were given more than an equal status than men which has due to various reasons deteriorated over time. Now, we have and we continue to take up many initiatives to bring women back to their lost status.
Participation:
- The event witnessed remarkable participation from Ministries/Departments of Government of India and UN Agencies.
As a part of International Women’s Day, a seminar to discuss the importance of gender statistics and its role in policy making was organized.
- The inaugural session was followed by a seminar on “Role of Gender Statistics in Policy Making” which was chaired by Ms. Nivedita Gupta, Director General, MoSPI.
About Women and Men in India:
» The publication “Women and Men in India” is a comprehensive and insightful document that provides data on a wide range of topics such as education, health, employment, and political participation, among others.
- It presents data disaggregated by gender, urban-rural divide, and geographical region, which helps us understand the disparities that exist between different groups of women and men.
Women and Men in India 2022
The publication Women and Men in India is prepared with the objective to provide variety of available gender statistics at one place to serve as a single platform for accessing gender statistics by users which is a clear commitment to intensify efforts to strengthen statistical capacities and to disaggregate data.
The publication “Women and men in India 2022”, comprised of four chapters.
- Chapter 1 provides overview of the publication.
- Chapter 2 of the publication gives the details of the policies and programmes of Government of India.
- Chapter 3 provides the data on population and related statistics, health and well-being, reproductive health, access to health services, literacy status, enrolment in all levels of education, drop out, availability of teachers under gender lens. Also, information/indicators on labour force participation, worker population, unemployment, employment status, time use, participation of women in decision-making, information related to impediments in empowerment particularly on early marriage, spousal violence, etc. are also included in the chapter.
- This year’s publication, a new chapter (Chapter 4) on SDGs and gender has been added.
Highlights:
» As per Census 2011, India’s population was 121.1 Crore with 48.5% female population and the total population is expected to reach to 152.2 crore during 2036 with a slightly improved percentage of female population (48.8).
- Population growth has been slowing down from an average annual growth rate of 2.2% in 1971 to 1.1 % in 2021 which is projected to further fall to 0.58% in 2036.
- Similar trend is observed in case of both males and females during this period except for a small increase in respect of females from 1971 to 1981.
» Given changing age composition, India’s working-age population will continue to increase through 2036.
- According to Report of the Technical Group on Population Projections for India and States 2011-2036, 735 million people or 60.7% of India’s population was in the working age group i.e. 15-59 years in 2011 and this population group is expected to increase over the years and would reach 988.5 million in 2036.
» Due to increasing longevity, population 60 years and above are projected to increase from 101.5 million in 2011 to 227.4 million in 2036. These amount to a fall in dependency ratio from 65% in 2011 to 54% in 2036.
» As per Report of the Technical Group on Population Projections for India and States 2011-2036, the sex ratio (females per 1000 males) in 2036 is expected to be more favourable to women compared to the 2011.
» As per NFHS-5 during 2019-21, 38 percent of males and 8.9 percent of females above the age of 15 years used tobacco.
» Over the years, progress has been achieved by the country in raising literacy levels for both women and men in the country.
- Data on literacy rate in India shows that the rate increased from 43.6% in 1981 to 77.7% in 2017 with the highest increase of 12.2 % in 6 years (2011 to 2017) experienced by rural women. As per data of National Sample Surveys conducted by MoSPI, gender gap in literacy rate went down from 18.2 in 2007- 08 to 14.4 in 2017-18.