Professor Vibhuti Patel, a distinguished academician and social scientist, served as a former professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) during 2017-2020 and SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai from 2004-2017. Throughout her rich and extensive career, Prof. Patel made significant contributions to various academic and advisory roles.Actively involved in the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), she served as a member of the Technical Advisory Group since 2011, focusing on the project “Enhancing male participation for improving gender equality in Maharashtra. Her significant contributions include involvement in the Seventh Survey on Education Research by NCERT and the Human Development Report for Greater Mumbai. With specialties in coordinating women’s studies and development programs, Prof. Vibhuti Patel exemplifies a lifelong dedication to education, gender studies, and social development, emphasizing her commitment to fostering positive change and promoting gender equality.
Rajni Vohra: You have worked extensively in the field of women and economics throughout your
career, what research areas within women and economics are currently gaining
attention in India?
Vibhuti Patel: Feminist economics as a discipline emerged in the 70s with the rise of the women’s movement. The movement at that time was aimed at fighting various forms of discrimination and injustice meted out to women in all sectors of the economy. The only way to bring about systemic changes was through studying those problems deeply to identify structures and systems that perpetuated discrimination and economic exploitation and in this way ‘Gender Economics’ emerged as a discipline. This discipline has a clear-cut mandate to challenge the subordination of women and the patriarchal controls over sexuality, fertility, labour amongst other issues. Gender economics provides framework to that transcends gender binary and is inclusive of gender non-conforming non-binary persons and communities. It is important to understand that economic behaviour is determined by gender stereotypes in politics, customs, tradition, institutional ethos which have a tremendous influence on the economic and market behaviour. The markets are socially constructed. The same gendered subjugations in tradition gets replicated in the labour market, product market and factor market as well. If you don’t invest in a girl/transgender children in terms of health, nutrition, education and skills, then obviously, they will have very limited opportunity in the economy. They will end up doing work in the informal sector which is a monotonous dead-end kind of job. Moreover, the transgender person will not even get an employment due to social stigma. When it comes to women’s labour in terms of unpaid care work or housework of cooking, cleaning, elderly/child care; it remains invisible, non-recognised and classified as un-productive work. Even non-market livelihood activities such as collection of fuel-fodder-water, kitchen gardening, animal care that augment family resources get non-recognised as work and are deemed non-work.
Rajni Vohra: In your opinion, what role should social sciences play in addressing societal issues and promoting positive change?
Vibhuti Patel: It is only through engendering social sciences and addressing societal issues such as socialisation of children, content of education, access to resources for development, safety, elimination discriminatory practices through legislations and evidence based policy formulation and implementation, teaching-training-research-documentation can bring transformative change for gender equality. It is necessary to know that very important issue in gender economics i.e. the demography of gender. Gender economists study how various economic factors like sex ratio, maternal-mortality, child mortality, life expectancy, work participation rate, etc. play an important role in determining human development indicators which are about the population, work participation, educational opportunities and career choices , decision making in the family-community-workplace and politics.
Rajni Vohra: How do you inspire and engage students in the study of social sciences, considering its dynamic and interdisciplinary nature?
Vibhuti Patel:There are several ways in which I inspire students to proactively engage in teaching-learning and research. I have experienced enthusiastic response from the students by encouraging them to reflect on economic reality around them and critically reflecting on their daily grind and connecting them with path of economic development, social and physical infrastructure, budgetary allocations in classroom discussions, choosing topics for group project work that demand research on contemporary economic challenges, discussion on newspaper articles and reports, organising study tour of community based organisations dedicated to economic empowerment of women, assignments of book-reviews and debates on economic policies, programmes, schemes through gender lens. For instance, understanding of gender audits of budgets are highly important for students. This means that whatever gender related commitments the state is making has to be translated into financial commitments. Plus, it also raises the question as to how to bend the forces of markets in favour of intersectionally vulnerable people as there is segmentation in the markets. Caste, class, race, religion, ethnicity, geographical location – whether you are in urban or rural or tribal area, are you in remote place or well connected through infrastructure – all play a significant role in the predicament of women and gender minorities in the economy. So, the gender economists have commitment to ensure that gender audit of the economic and social conditions. Next, Gender planning and policy-making are required on the basis of situational analysis through gender lens and identification of practical gender needs and strategic gender needs. Gender economists have played a splendid role in bending the power structures to enable women to top leadership positions so that they can challenge patriarchal biases at that level. On the other hand, there are women who at the community level build pressure and demand more space for themselves within the economy. Gender economists are dedicated to the bottom-up approach, this means- promotion of Gender Responsive Participatory Budget making backed by gender transformative financial policy. It basically involves sitting with the community, identifying their needs and coming up with a micro-plan. It also involves capacity building of women elected representatives and administrators in governance structures. Thus, policies that encourage more and more women in the government can change the economic behaviour and ultimately solve the economic problems of the village, tehsil, district, state, nation and region. It can also foster global solidarities. We can learn these from the best practices from around the world.
Rajni Vohra: How do you assess the impact of the 2024 budget on advancing the status of women in society?
Vibhuti Patel: The interim budget serves as a framework for managing provisional expenditures over a short duration, till the new government is formed after the general election and it will take office at the central level. So the interim budget presented on 2-2-2024 by the Hon. Finance Minister is meant to meet the financial requirements and tackle revenue considerations of the current government during this interim period. Following the inauguration of the new government, a comprehensive budget for the remaining portion of the fiscal year will be typically presented in July, 2024.
In the post-independence period, India has implemented a range of major social sector initiatives to address various challenges and improve the well-being of its citizens that covers areas such as education, healthcare, women’s empowerment, rural development, skill development, employment, special needs of socio-economic marginalised communities such as SCs, STs, PWD, lonely elderly from the poverty groups.
Major challenges faced for the gender and social sector concerns in the current times are youth unemployment in the urban, rural and tribal areas, low work participation rate for women, food inflation and agrarian distress. Former RBI governor, Dr. Duvvuri Subbarao, in his edit page article in The Times of India, on 30-1-2024 alerted the government, and I quote, “Consequence of jobless growth is inequality.” He also avers that, by using the instruments of policies and financial allocation of the interim budget 2024-25 and fiscal measures for enhancing purchasing power of the bottom 50% of population can be enhanced, This will result into huge consumption that will result in more production, more employment resulting in higher quality of economic growth and reduce inequality.
The interim budget ignores social spending in favour of capital expenditure. Over last one decade, there has been a continuous the trend of declining expenditure of the Union Budget for schemes for protective and welfare schemes such as Shelter homes, short stay homes, Rehabilitation schemes for women survivors of violence, Pensions for widows and destitute women, Directly benefiting women, Crisis management of situations arising out of economic and socio-cultural subordination and dehumanization of women; social service spending on education, public health, crèche, working women’s hostels, housing, nutrition, water supply, sanitation-toilets, drainage, fuel, fodder and regulatory services for combat gender based violence such as funds for State Commission for Women, Women’s cell at the police stations, Awareness generation programmes. Social sectors that ensure basic rights have declined as a proportion of GDP.
Rajni Vohra: What message would you convey to an educated Indian middle-class woman who, due to domestic responsibilities, cannot engage in a conventional 9 to 5 job, yet retains a strong sense of ambition and passion?
Vibhuti Patel: The educated Indian middle class women need to get out of their atomised existence and become a vociferous community to further rights of all women. Their strong sense of ambition and passion can result in positive societal role only when they collectively strive for equal opportunity and equal treatment in the family, in the society, in the employment. They need to speak out about sharing of housework and care work by all family members, not by women alone. They need to inculcate practices of gender equality among their children. They should raise issues of removal gender biases in the textbook and officially discuss safety concerns of students in the parent-teachers meeting. In their social gathering, they should not allow any sexist-casteist-communal- homophobic remarks. Educated middle class women have a great responsibility towards responsible citizenship guided by constitutional morality. They can also support community based organisations in mentoring children from the underserved sections of society by volunteering their time for education and skill development.
Rajni Vohra: Thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights and expertise during this interview. Your vast knowledge and valuable perspectives as an educationist and renowned economist have been truly enlightening. I appreciate the depth of your responses and the thoughtful way you approached each question. It has been a privilege to learn from you, and I am grateful for the opportunity to engage in this insightful conversation. Thank you again for your time and generosity in sharing your wealth of experience.