Gender Dimensions of Development in India: A Critical Insight into Linkages among Social Cohesion, Social Participation and Development

While India is being considered as one of the fastest growing economy in the world, majority of population does not evenly share the benefits of development that the top decile of the population have due to the presence of widespread social inequality in education, income, health and overall development. According to UN (2004), women are equally important as men in the process of development. In this paper, women’s role in the country’s development has been studied by bringing, examining and linking the issues of social cohesion and social participation with social inequality in India. Proxy indicators have been validated to measure social cohesion. Using NFHS-3 (2005-06) data, social cohesion, social participation and social inequality have been measured from women’s perspectives. Social inequality has been used as a proxy for underdevelopment and it has been found to be linked with low social cohesion and low social participation by women. Results from bivariate and multivariate analyses show that controlling for other factors, social cohesion is found to be significantly related to social inequality among women in India. Undoubtedly, social inequality among women has strong socio-religious patterns which again turn out to be the foundation of asymmetrical development of a region.