The State of Inequality in India report

The State of Inequality in India report

News: Recently, the ‘State of Inequality in India’ Report was released by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM).

About:
• The report compiles information on inequities across sectors of health, education, household and the labor market.
• It consists of two parts – Economic Facets and Socio-Economic manifestations which looks at 5 key areas that influence the nature and experience of inequality.
• The report is based on data derived from various rounds of the Periodic labor force survey (PLFS) and National Family and Health survey and United Information system for Education plus.

Highlights of Report:

Wealth Concentration
• Urban areas have a 44.4% wealth concentration in the highest quintile (20%) compared to meager 7.1% concentration in rural areas.

Health Infrastructure
• There has been considerable improvement in increasing the infrastructural capacity with a targeted focus on rural areas. There has been rise in the number of health centres in India now compared to earlier years.

Unemployment Rate
• India’s unemployment rate is 4.8% (2019-20), and the worker population ratio is 46.8%.
• In 2019-20, among different employment categories, the highest percentage was self-employed workers (45.78%), followed by regular salaried workers (33.5%) and casual workers (20.71%).
• The share of self-employed workers also happens to be the highest in the lowest income categories.

Education
• The Gross enrolment ratio has also increased between 2018-19 and 2019-20 at the primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary.

Health
• The results of NFHS-4 (2015-16) and NFHS-5 (2019-21) have shown that 58.6% of women received antenatal check-ups in the first trimester in 2015-16, which increased to 70% by 2019-21.
• 78% of women received postnatal care from a doctor or auxiliary nurse within two days of delivery, and 79.1% of children received postnatal care within two days of delivery.

However, nutritional deprivation in terms of overweight, underweight, and prevalence of anaemia (especially in children, adolescent girls and pregnant women) remains areas of huge concern requiring urgent attention. Additionally, low health coverage, leading to high out-of-pocket expenditure, directly affects poverty indices.