IS ECONOMY LEADS TO WOMEN EQUALITY?

Amartya Sen, a noble prize winner economist, in his article “More than 100 Million Missing Women,” presents grounds and explanation behind missing of large number of women from this planet. One of his paragraph, he questions one of the prominent prejudices i.e. “economic development” is directly proportional to women’s equality. As economy of a country grows, the status of women at home; work places and in society also uplifts (Sen, 4). He uses example of “mortality at childbirth” – which surely decreases with economic developments that significantly improve hospital’s facilities and provide better child care. He acknowledges economic development as an important factor for betterment of women status but does not rely on it wholly. He strongly refutes this claim by providing example of Sub-Saharans countries which are poor and under develop, but have substantial “excess of women.” (Sen, 5). Then he gives example of Punjab and Haryana – which is amongst the richest state of India, which have very low women to men ratio (0.86) in contrast with Kerala – poorer state of India having women to men ratio (1.03) (Sen, 5). By these examples, he strongly counters attack “economic explanation” for women inequality.

He uses statistical evidences and logics to rebut and disagree with the purely “economic explanation.” I think the strategy works best in this paragraph, because he initially stated opponent claims clearly with their possible reasons. Then he acknowledges with them partly but disproves this at the same time. His use of logical and statistical analysis is strong enough to refute purely “economic explanation” and supports his overall claim.

The claim of this article is that “women at gainful employment” have better chances of survival along with other social, cultural and economic variables (Sen, 11). In this paragraph, Sen strongly disagrees with the “economic explanation” purely for women inequalities. The paragraph as a whole helps him to builds his claim. The refutes, he provides help readers to logically analyze the statistical situation and also thinks about other variables that affect women mortality rate and women to men ratio at the same time. Consequently, we can say that this one paragraph works for Sen to strengthen his claims and also to persuade and convince his readers.

WORK CITED
Sen, Amartya. “More Than 100 Million Missing Women.” Nybooks Archives. Dec 20, 1990. Mar 4, 2013