GS Analyst: Daily Editorial In Brief

Context:

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has directed insurance providers to extend health insurance coverage to senior citizens above the age of 65, acknowledging demographic shifts and the need for broader access to health insurance.

Demographic Changes and Health Insurance Access

• Necessity due to demography: India's population, estimated to rival China's, is undergoing significant demographic shifts, with a growing senior population projected.
• Concerning healthcare: Access to health care, affordable medicine, and caregiving infrastructure for seniors is a concern in both developed and developing countries.
• Addressing exclusion: The IRDAI's directive aims to address the exclusion of senior citizens from health insurance coverage, acknowledging the need for broader access to health care.

Challenges of Affordability and Access

• Affordability challenges: Health insurance policies become increasingly expensive with age, posing affordability challenges for senior citizens.
• Exclusion from insurance option: Existing family floater plans cater to a small percentage of India's economic elite, leaving many seniors without affordable health insurance options.
• Merely broadening eligibility without addressing affordability may result in the proliferation of unaffordable health insurance policies.

Necessity for Upgraded Healthcare Infrastructure

• Shift from traditional caregiving: The demographic dividend in India's workforce necessitates a shift away from traditional caregiving structures for the aged.
• Investment in infrastructure: Extending health insurance coverage must be accompanied by substantial investments in affordable healthcare infrastructure.
• Need to upgrade healthcare: Lessons from southern Indian states underscore the importance of upgrading healthcare to meet the needs of an aging population.

Context:

The Supreme Court's recent judgment on child care leave (CCL) for women has significant implications for female employment, emphasizing the constitutional entitlement to women's participation in the workforce.

Importance of Child Care Leave (CCL) in Workforce Participation

• Participation in workforce: The Supreme Court's ruling underscores the centrality of CCL in facilitating women's participation in the workforce.
• Absence of state-level provisions: A plea by a government college assistant professor denied CCL highlighted the absence of state-level provisions, leading to policy review initiated by the Court.
• Constitutional entitlement: Recognizing women's workforce participation as a constitutional entitlement, the Court mandates policy changes to address the special concerns of women employees.

Challenges in Women's Workforce Participation

• Challenging responsibilities: Despite a rise in female labour force participation rate, significant care responsibilities impede women's career growth.
• Compulsory career breaks: Women in India undertake a disproportionate amount of unpaid care work, contributing significantly to the economy but often leading to career breaks.
• Compromises: The burden of childcare, housekeeping, and elderly care often forces women to drop out of the workforce or compromises their professional advancement.

Addressing Challenges and Fostering Gender-Neutral Policies

• Investments in infrastructure for affordable and specialized child and elder care are crucial, especially with the expected rise in the senior citizen population.
• Adopting a gender-neutral approach to care work is essential to dismantling stereotypes and accommodating evolving family structures.
• Extending CCL to all employees, irrespective of gender, can be a progressive step towards fostering gender equality in the workforce.

Context:

The World Inequality Lab's working paper titled 'Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922-2023: The Rise of the Billionaire Raj' highlights alarming levels of income and wealth inequality in India, posing significant challenges to economic growth and human development.

Income and Wealth Inequality Trends

• Income concentration: The working paper reveals that India's top 1% received 22.6% of the national income by 2022-23, the highest in a century, with the top 0.1% earning nearly 10%.
• Wealth concentration: Wealth concentration is stark, with the top 1% owning 40.1% of national wealth, while the bottom 50% and middle 40% witnessed declines in wealth share.
• Wealth inequality: Notably, India's wealth inequality, though not as extreme as Brazil and South Africa, has tripled since 1961, exacerbating income inequality.

Impact of Economic Reforms and Growth

• Impact on growth & poverty: Inequality began rising post-liberalization in the 1980s and accelerated after the 1991 economic reforms, undermining both growth and poverty reduction efforts.
• Economic inequality: India's growth trajectory, unlike China's, has been characterized by extreme economic inequality despite moderate growth rates.
• Importance of human development: States with sustained high growth rates, such as Kerala and Maharashtra, also exhibited advanced human development, emphasizing the importance of human development for inclusive growth.

Human Development Challenges and Policy Implications

• Challenges: Despite being the fifth-largest economy, India lags in human development, ranking below countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
• Required priorities: The focus on economic growth should prioritize human development to ensure inclusive growth, as economic inequality impedes overall progress.
• Need of more innovative schemes: Schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, while providing short-term relief, are insufficient to address entrenched economic inequality and poverty.