The report, “Fair Progress: Economic Mobility across Generations Around the World”, measured intergenerational mobility by comparing the income and education levels of one generation with those of their parents, and relative mobility by comparing the difference between generations across income and educational levels.
 
“It is about fairness. Do you have a chance to get ahead in society regardless of where you are from?” said Ambar Narayan, the lead economist studying poverty and equity at the World Bank, and a co-author of the report, while explaining the basic query the report pursues. Mobility is important for the long-term growth of a country. “It is not an efficient society if you are not rewarded for your own ability and potential,” he said.
 
Data on intergenerational mobility can help shed light on the equality of opportunity in a country–whether a level playing field exists for those born in poor and rich families. Data on India in the World Bank report are based on the 2011-12 India Human Development Survey, conducted by researchers from the University of Maryland and the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi. The most recent data are for the generation that was born in 1980 who were able to provide data on themselves and their parents for the 2011-12 survey.
 
“Parents want [their] children to have a better life than they did, while children want to fulfil their aspirations irrespective of their parent’s income and education level,” Narayan said.
 

Effect of parents’ education, income
 
India has made progress on educational intergenerational mobility, with those born in the 1980s doing better than those born in the 1940s, the report showed.

 
Despite improvement, India offers the least educational mobility among its developing-country peers.

 
In countries such as Brazil, India, Nigeria, Peru and South Africa, if a person earns double the amount earned by another, her/his child is, on average, expected to make somewhere between 60-70% more than the child of the lower-income person, the report said.
 
This gap is worse in other countries such as the Arab Republic of Egypt, Morocco and Panama, where it can go up to 90%, and in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Uganda, where it can be as much as 100%.
 
In comparison, the difference is less than 20% in countries such as Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Norway, and 50% in the United States and Vietnam, the report said.
 
The report also measured the mobility of those whose parents belonged to the bottom half in educational attainment, and found that educational levels were dependent on parents’ educational levels across generations. For instance, there was a 71% chance that an individual born in the 1980s to parents in the bottom half in terms of educational attainment would stay in the bottom half, and just a 9% chance that he or she would move to the topmost quarter.
 

Source: Global Database on Intergenerational Mobility.
Note: This chart measures the effect of parents’ education on children’s education levels.
* Higher the number, lower the upward mobility.
** Higher the number, higher the upward mobility
 
In India, for the generation born in 1980, 17.8% of an individual’s income could be explained through the effect of parents’ education on a child’s education; 7.2% of the income could be attributed to parents’ education impacting the child’s income through factors other than education (such as by helping a child develop better non-cognitive or soft skills); and 75% by income-related characteristics other than education (such as parental connections, segregated neighbourhoods, etc.).
 
Although data on intergenerational mobility are as important as data on poverty and inequality for making policy, not enough up-to-date data are available at present. Arguing that more such data must be collected, Narayan said, “There is a simple, low-cost way of doing this by including a question on parental education, and occupation, in national surveys.”
 
Intergenerational mobility of scheduled castes, tribes up; gender gap persists
 
The gender gap in intergenerational mobility, which would constrain girls more than boys, is almost zero in the current generation in Brazil, China, Egypt and Indonesia. By contrast, it has remained unchanged in India for those born in the 1940s, 1950s and 1980s.
 
Other data also show that girls are more disadvantaged in India than boys–68.4% of Indian women were literate in 2015-16 versus 85.7% men, and the sex ratio at birth was 919 women for every 1,000 boys, betraying a preference for male children.  
 
On the positive side, the difference in the intergenerational mobility among scheduled castes and tribes, when compared to other social groups, has reduced between 1983 and 2004-05, the report said, citing a 2012 study. This could be the effect of the strengthening of community networks within scheduled castes and tribes, increasing market competition because of economic liberalisation, and reservation policies in education and government jobs, the study published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics said.
 
What can be done
 
“Interventions early in life are critical because gaps that emerge early in life are difficult to offset through interventions later,” the report said, suggesting that maternal health programmes, which also affect the baby’s health, and early child nutrition and cognitive development programmes can help reduce the gap in opportunities between poor and rich children.
 
In low and lower middle-income economies such as India, school enrolment increases with rising parental income and education. If parents’ educational level is low, secondary school enrolment is very sensitive to household income, the report said.
 
Inequality of opportunity is likely to be much higher if the quality of education is considered, the report added. In India, one in 10 rural residents aged 14-18 years is unable to read a text in their own language meant for children aged 5-7 years, according to data from the Annual Survey of Education Report, as IndiaSpend reported in January 2018. Closing this gap in the quality of education could improve upward mobility.
 
Further, public spending on education promotes a level playing field for poorer children, the report suggested, so that economies with higher public investment in education show higher relative mobility in education.
 
Government spending on education in India, as a proportion of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), has historically been low. For instance, Brazil spent 5.9% of its GDP on education in 2014, while India spent 2.8%. Spending in India has reduced from 3.1% of GDP in 2012-13 to 2.7% in 2017-18, government data show.

 
“Children from low-income households, or minority groups, are more likely to reside in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, compared to neighbourhoods where better-off families live,” the report said. This could lead to differential access to resources–such as schools, medical facilities, employment opportunities–and exposure to good peers and mentors, the report explained.
 
“Programs such as mandatory inclusionary zones and community land trusts, which provide affordable housing for low-income families, mentoring programs, interventions through social networks, and internships at local companies as ways to motivate and help children, could also help lower the inequity in access to opportunities,” the report said.
 
Further, a well-functioning labour market is important to improve upward mobility, as an economy in which “jobs are rationed, labour mobility is limited, and human capital investments are priced differently based on characteristics unrelated to a worker’s productivity” could decrease intergenerational mobility, the report added.
 
(Khaitan is a writer/editor with IndiaSpend.)
 

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Communities continue to be a “receptacle for charity, rather than a partner in development”, according to the report released by IRBF on India’s top 100 companies businesses. Not a single company disclosed having stakeholder consultations while formulating their CSR policy, the report said.
 
In India, companies with a minimum net worth of Rs 500 crore or turnover up to Rs 1000 crore or a net profit of at least Rs 5 crore have to spend at least 2% of the average net profits the company made during the three immediately preceding financial years on CSR.
 
Only 15 of 99 companies reported a mechanism to find out a community’s problems before planning a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project, and 27 of 99 companies said they had a system in place for third party assessments of CSR projects, the analysis found.
 
IBRF releases the India Business Responsibility Index each year that analyses public disclosures made by the top 100 companies by market capitalisation on five measures–commitment to non-discrimination in the workplace, respecting employee dignity and human rights, community development, inclusiveness in supply chain and community as business stakeholders, which are broadly based on the 2011 National Voluntary Guidelines on Social Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business.
 
“As corporates are critical components of the social system, they are accountable not merely to their shareholders from a revenue and profitability perspective but also to the larger society which is also its stakeholder,” the report cited SEBI’s rationale behind the national voluntary guidelines and the index.
 
The index only analyses policy and not actual implementation or performance of the company. It also does not independently validate information provided in public disclosures to SEBI.
 
The number of disclosures increased between 2013 and 2016 showing an increasing openness from companies, but they have become “more careful in reporting over the past one year,” with the number of disclosures stagnating between 2016 and 2017, said Pradeep Narayanan, part of the principal research team of the report, and director of research and capacity building at New Delhi-based Praxis India, a nonprofit working on community participation. The fewest disclosures were related to the inclusiveness of the supply chain, he said.
 
“The overall data, especially when seen alongside the profits of corporate India, continue to reflect a distance between the interests of business and shareholders and those of communities and of workers,” the report said. Only six companies each scored in the top band for just two measures–non-discrimination and community development.
 
And this is when the index is “already biased in favour of companies”. First because we only look at policy commitment and not implementation, and second because we only look at the company’s own disclosures,” Narayanan said.
 
These disclosures, under SEBI’s business responsibility report, are the only disclosures that help in understanding whether businesses follow responsible practices in their core businesses, and can help serve as a source of information for civil society organisations (some of whom might receive funds from these organisations), for communities, the media, and for the government.
 
“Often the questions in the business responsibility report make companies think about these issues,” and could “push companies to be more responsible, Narayanan said.
 
Low commitment to analysing business impact on communities
 
The report also analyses how companies interact with communities and the environment affected by their business operations.
 
About 44 companies, 22% more than in 2016, reported the existence of systems that promote judicious use of natural resources.
 
There is a lack of commitment from companies to provide similar or better living conditions and services to people who are affected by company projects. As many as 90 of 95 companies did not report any such policy, the report found. No company reported local employment generated from their projects.
 
None of the companies disclosed the presence of systems to seek community participation in projects, 13 disclosed policies for the recognition and respect for local cultures, and six said they had policies for recognition of public hearing and communication of project impacts to the community, the report found.
 
The following figure shows the change between 2016 and 2017 in businesses’ commitment to assessing the impact on communities.
 

Figure: Recognition of the need to assess business impact on communities and means to minimise the negative impacts [2016 (n=100), 2017 (n=99)]
 
Few companies disclose policies on ensuring diversity on the board
 
All but 24 companies disclosed commitment to non-discrimination as part of their recruitment process while 50 of 100 disclosed details about systems and mechanisms to ensure non-discrimination, the 2018 report by the IRBF found. Only 27 disclosed policies on ensuring diversity on the board, out of which 7 disclosed steps and mechanisms to ensure diversity.
 
Only 19 companies disclosed policies on people with disability. In terms of diversity in the workplace, 96 companies disclosed number of women employees, while 15 companies disclosed numbers of SC and ST employees, the report found.
 

 
Employee rights don’t extend to contractual employees
 
68 companies recognised the freedom of association for employees, while 54 recognised the principle of collective bargaining, the report found. But few (24 of 99) disclosed commitment to ensuring the minimum wage, while 6 companies reported they were committed to providing a fair living wage, the report found.
 
Further, these policies don’t extend to contractual employees. Only 6 companies explicitly stated in their policies that the social benefits are extendable to contractual employees.
 
(Khaitan is a writer/editor with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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Women comprise 48.5% of the general population, and the domination of men in the lower judiciary, the frontline of the judicial system, might reduce courts’ legitimacy as representative of the societies they serve.
 
The inclusion of women in the judiciary enables courts to understand the real-world implications of their rulings, and reduces barriers to women’s access to justice, such as stigma associated with reporting violence and abuse, the report said. It could also signal “equality of opportunity for women in the legal profession and an appointments process that is merit-based, fair, and non-discriminatory”.
 
The Vidhi analysis used names of judges as reported on court websites between March and July 2017.
 

Source: Tilting the scale, gender imbalance in the lower judiciary, Vidhi center for legal policy
 
Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Dadra and Nagar Haveli had no female judges. Bihar, with 11.5% of all its lower courts judges female, had the lowest proportion of women judges in the lower judiciary of all states analysed, followed by Jharkhand (13.9%), Gujarat (15.1%) and Jammu and Kashmir (18.6%).
 
The highest proportion of women judges in the lower judiciary was in Meghalaya (73.8%), followed by Goa (65.9%) and Sikkim (64.7%).

Source: Tilting the scale, gender imbalance in the lower judiciary, Vidhi center for legal policy
 
The proportion of female judges is lower at the level of the district judge than at lower levels, the analysis showed. For instance, in Madhya Pradesh, 42.1% of civil judges (junior division) were female compared to 13.6% of district judges.
 
Lack of data on gender diversity in Indian judiciary
 
If there were fewer female civil judges (junior division) in 1995 than now, fewer women judges would currently occupy higher posts in the lower judiciary, since higher posts are mostly filled through promotion from civil judges (junior division), the report explained.
 

Source: Tilting the scale, gender imbalance in the lower judiciary, Vidhi center for legal policy
 
“Differences in the gender balance between these tiers may also hint at potential bias in
 
promotional processes,” the report said. “Given that men and women are equally meritorious, in the absence of discrimination, one would assume that the proportion of women judges will remain the same from the lowest to the higher tiers, for any given batch of judicial officers.”
 
However, without information on the number of women graduating from law school, applying for judicial positions, and promotions over the years, it is difficult to understand the reasons behind the gender imbalance in the lower judiciary or the changes in the gender composition over time.
 
For the report, data on judges in the lower judiciary was collected from websites of different courts across states, and the gender of the judges determined on the basis of their prefix, and by using Gender-API.com, a database of names from across the world.
 
“There are no systematic efforts to regularly compile and publish even basic data on the  proportion of women judges in different levels of Indian courts,” the report said. It is especially challenging to understand the composition of the lower judiciary given the large numbers of districts and judges and unavailability of nationwide statistics, the report explained.
 
“The judiciary is notorious for the lack of data… we had to call several times to even find out information about reservation policies for women in the judiciary in different states,” said Nitika Khaitan, research fellow at the judicial reform initiative at the Vidhi Center for Legal Policy.
 
Women underrepresented in the higher judiciary
 
The Supreme Court and High Courts are the ‘higher judiciary’, while District Courts  and below are the ‘lower’ or ‘subordinate’ judiciary.
 
Women are underrepresented even as higher levels in the judiciary. Since the Indian Supreme Court was established in 1950, it has had only six women judges, and currently has one woman judge out of 25. Across India’s 24 High Courts, a little more than 10% judges are women, with not even a single woman judge in eight High Courts, the report found.
 
(Khaitan is a writer/editor with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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