EXCLUSION OF WOMEN IN CONTEXT OF MANIPUR

Exclusion of Women in many disciplines becomes an emerging issue all over the world. In the patriarchal society, male is the heads of households and breadwinners and women were confined to household responsibilities.In reality, the assignment of men to the public sphere and women to the family. Regarding this, feminists (1792) started a revolution against male domination all over the world and under the pressure of Feminist Movement this traditional model came to change in the 1960s and 1970s, partly in response to equality issues and to reducing gender bias in mainstream economic knowledge. Manipuri women has unique status and share a major contribution to the state economy, whereas, much of her work is still invisible. The paper is an attempt to analyze the extent to which exclusion of women in the societal and institutional contexts influence the gender division of labour and gender gap in context of Manipur.


ISSN: 2320-5407
Int. J. Adv. Res. 8 (10), 326-331 327 already see from this that to emancipate woman and make her the equal of the man is and remains an impossibility so long as the woman is shut out from social productive labour and restricted to private domestic labour" (Engels 1972, p. 221). He emphasized the significance of women"s exclusion from the commercial economy as the source of their subordination under capitalism. Neo-classical theorists opined that women earn less than men because they have lower level of human capital, viz. education, and training on the job experiences and therefore lower productivity. (Mincer and Polachcheck, 1974).Institutional Economist Thorstein Veblen noted that "even women married to capitalism"s "captains of industry" were subordinated as well as privileged. Because "it grates painfully on our nerves to contemplate the necessity of any well-bred woman"s earning a livelihood by useful work" (Veblen 1912, p. 180). Further, institutional theorists of labour market suggest that dual labour market and labour segmentation tend to consider women"s position in the home and society as given and how this lead to their disadvantages position in the labour market. Heidi Hartmann suggest that there is a "material base" to patriarchy in capitalism and it "does not rest solely on child-rearing in the family, but on all the social structures that enable men to control women"s labour" (Hartmann 1979, p. 12).The material base for men"s leverage over women, that is,patriarchy, was secured both by channeling women into the low-paying jobsthat were frequently similar to house holding and mothering activities and by keeping them at home (Hartmann 1979;Folbre 1994, p. 95). Thus the family wages "cemented the partnership between patriarchy and capital" (Hartmann 1979, p. 18).Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Beatrice Potter Webb focused explicit attention on the importance of gender in economic relationships (1898,1919). Feminist economists noticed that in the absence of a gender analysis, economic theories were, and are, linked to masculinist notions of science (J.A. Nelson 1995).Unquestioned and unexamined, Western masculine values were deeply ingrained in traditional economic theories about so-called women"s issues (Strassmann, 1993). Globally, the existing definitions of work do not capture the large part of the work done by women because in those areas women were confined in unpaid household work, agricultural firm and industry for own family consumption. Women's involvement in economic activity other than non-economic work is high; even in case where women are secluded, but official statistics do not often capture the degree of their involvement. On the contrary, all the male members in the household, except minor children and old people, are reported as workers no matter what ever may be their contribution. Manipuri women have a unique status in the social, cultural and economic role. Women"s economic contribution and their predominance in agriculture, manufacturing and trade in the market is paramount from the ancient times. However, most of their economic activity is seen in the unorganized informal sector and also as an unpaid household labour. Both in the primary and secondary sectors there is sex-based division of labour and also wage differentiation in the labour market. Hence, there is undervaluation and non-recognition of women"s work, which serves to reinforce the theoretical degradation of women and result in gender discrimination and gender inequality all over the world. Time use studies of women in comparison to men will serve to bring out the immense time burden of women and help in recognition of their contribution. The findings of my PhD work on household time use survey of Hill Districts of Manipur that "The total average time spent on unpaid SNA and Extended-SNA activities (Household work+ Child and the elder"s care +unpaid SNA work) for male are only 8hrs and 37 minutes compared to 16hrs 5 minutes for females". (

Objectives of the study:-
The objectives of the paper are; a) To define gender gap in the social and economic institutions by using global gender gap index b) To examine and suggest a longer-term policy for gender equality as well as inclusion of women"s work in the system of national accounts.
The Global Gender Gap Index examines the gap between men and women in four fundamental categories: 1.Economic participation and opportunity, 2. Educational attainment, 3. Health and survival and 4. Political empowerment.

Economic participation and opportunity:
The area of Economic participation and opportunity is captured through three concepts namely, the participation gap, the remuneration gap or wage gap and the advancement gap. The participation gap is captured through the difference in labour force participation rates. The following data indicates male females work participation rate and gender gaps of Manipur. The percentages trend of workers from 1981 -2011 is given in Table. No. 1. The composition of workers shows that the proportion of the main workers of male to the total population in Manipur increases from 57.8 in 1981 to 69.9% in 2011. On the other hand, main worker of female decreases to 42.2 in 1981to 39.1 in 2011.The data shows that females" participation rate as main workers is low to compare their male counterparts. In the case of Marginal workers, female"s participation rate is significally high to compare the male.
Thirty year"s trend shows that most of the women workers are marginal worker whereas marginal and non-worker were not classified into the occupational categories of work. The district-wise and sex-wise percentage distribution of worker and non-workers of Manipur is shown in Table  No.2.As per 2011 census, females" work participation rates of each districts of Manipur are low as compared with males and there are large Gender gap of workers of Manipur. The above data clearly shows that the number of female Non-worker are more than males that means Manipuri women"s contribution are not recognized and still invisible. Women and children do low-wage jobs in the informal sectors like brick fields, agricultural firm and small scale industry and in the market. By itself, the informal sector is characterized by insecure conditions of work, poor wages, etc. The data of the remuneration gap and advancement are not shown in this paper.

Educational attainment:
In this category, the gap between women"s and men"s current access to education is captured through ratios of women to men in primary, secondary and tertiary-level education. A longer-term view of the country"s ability to educate women and men. The following data shows Sex -wise student"s enrolment from primary stage to High & Higher Secondary School level. The girl enrolment at the primary stage is nearly same to the boys" enrolment in 2012-13. However, number of girl"s enrolment decreases from 2013 to 2017 and in 2016-17 gender gaps reached 2.82%. In middle and upper primary stages, number of girl"s enrolment increased but in 2016-17 the relative share of girl"s enrolment is 49.76% as against 50.24 % boy"s enrolment, i.e. girl"s enrolment is still low to compare the boys. In higher and higher Secondary level, girl"s enrolment were low in the following years and gender gap is contemporary high.

Source: Census Publications of the Office of the Registrar General, India
It has been observed the literacy trends of Manipur that significant progress had been made in terms of literacy rate. The female literacy rate of Manipur has gone up from 15.93 % in 1961 to 72.37 % in 2011. The literacy rate also has gone up from 30.42 % in 1961 to 79.21% in 2011. However to compared the male counterparts, females literacy rate is still low and gender gap were high in the following years. Actually, education is the only way to bring empowerment of women whereas, the status of women continues to remain backward because of their illiteracy and ignorance and excluded from the social and economic institutions.

Health and survival:
Health is the most important point of human happiness and well-being in the society. Healthy populations bring an important contribution to economic progress and overall development. Since health of female also effect health and wellbeing of next generation it becomes essential to assess the differentials in terms gender for various health indicators and also to examine the level of various women specific health indicators. To do this, we use two variables. The first variable is the sex ratio at birth. Male-biased sex ratios at birth result largely from an interaction of overt discrimination expressed in preference for sons, increased use of parental sex selection and declining fertility. After birth, however, poor institution of Public health and services delivery lead to excess female mortality in early childhood and the reproductive ages. (WDR, 2012, Gender Equality and Development, p. 141.) Second, we use the gap between women"s and men"s healthy life expectancy, calculated by the World Health Organization. Table No. 5 presents the sex ratio trend during 1971to 2011 and the data reveals highest sex ratio in urban areas of Manipur ( 1026), although the major share of the total population is found in the rural areas and sex ratio of rural area is only 969. To examine the fifty years trend of all India average, the sex-ratio is very low in the urban area. It was only 858 in 1971 and gradually increased 929 in 2011. To compare the all India average, Manipur"s sex-ration is far better. Life expectancy at birth by sex and residence are shown in the following Table No. 6.  1971  980  981  980  949  858  930  1981  971  969  971  951  879  934  1991  951  975  985  938  893  926  2001  963  1009  974  946  900  933  2011  969  1026  985  949  929 943 Note: Sex ratio is the number of females per thousand males. It is just for the namesake. While we examine the scenario of the political empowerment of the women Manipur, women"s position is very poor to compare their male counterparts. Therefore, there is large gap between men and women in political decision-making at the highest level and the ratio of women to men in parliamentary positions.

Conclusion:-
While we examine the above four fundamental categories, women were excluded. In the economic participation women"s labour force participation rate is still low. Education and Health status of women are low to compare their male counterparts. There is large gap in political participation and decision-making at the highest level and also at the family level. Actually, Women"s contribution to the society and the economy are very important because without her contribution, society itself will not function properly. Therefore, policy makers must plan a long-term policy for gender equality as well as inclusion of women"s work in the system of national accounts. Hence, the framework of development planning has to focus on women"s empowerment and to remove social stereotyping from the grassroots levels.