Yes more jobs, but not really: Suitably titled an “An Uptick from the Abyss”: CMIE data on unemployment for India shows some relief for May 2020. For more details on what constitutes this increase, see here. The top line to note is that the increase in jobs reflects the partial lifting of the lockdown causing people with informal jobs or the self-employed to slowly come back to work. Secure, salaried jobs remain a “distant dream” and India’s unemployment still remains very high at 22.4%.
Chickens coming home to roost: Maharashtra has asked Kerala to send them more doctors. As the infection cases rise, see this good, data backed piece on how long do each of the Indian states have before they get to this point. Using Maharashtra to define the threshold for when a state will start needing more doctors or nurses, the analysts estimate that many other states including Haryana and Tamil Nadu will need additional doctors well within the next fortnight. Among countries worldwide with over 2,000 cases, India has the worst ratios of doctors and nurses per 10,000 population. The root of this crisis is really in the abysmal levels of investment that India has made in its healthcare systems over decades now. See below the state-wise estimates for days left to reach the “threshold”.
Gender data: If your work engages on gender issues (as it should!), see here guidance released by UNWomen on ethical issues and safety principles for data collectors and analysts working on violence against women during the pandemic. Research has found that asking direct questions on intimate partner violence, in the absence of strong precautions, can increase the risk of violence. See this for a roundup of emerging and available gender-disaggregated data on Covid-19, and this for why there isn’t enough.
This world is designed (literally) for men: Continuing with the gender theme, see this on how even though the majority of the global healthcare workforce are women (70%), masks and other protective equipment (PPEs) are designed for men’s bodies. This leaves the women at very high risks. The larger issue of women working in a world designed for men is so pervasive that we don’t even see it, and it defines our “normal”. To know more, I recommend you read this outstanding book titled “Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men”, by Caroline Criado Perez. It tells you why queues outside women’s loos are longer or why cars are more dangerous for women. I promise you, you won’t look at the world the same way again. If you won’t read the book, read this piece that shares some of Perez’s findings.
We’re beating the world: Recent data from Goldman Sachs shows that across major world economies, India has the largest share of loans under moratorium – i.e. loans where the borrowers have received an EMI holiday (can pause payments). Goldman Sachs has said that this is because conditions for granting relief are less stringent here than in other countries. It is estimated that about 35% of loans across the Indian banking system are under moratorium – this is about 10% for the USA, 1% for China and about 9% for Australia. With the RBI extending loan moratorium to August, this can be expected to rise further, and will have implications for the health of the Indian banking sector going forward. Not the kind the RBI intended.
Be careful what you ask (make policies) for: While on the theme of unintended policy consequences, I came across the concept of the “Cobra Effect”. At the time of British rule in India, the British government wanted to reduce the population of cobras in Delhi. There were apparently too many. To take care of this, the government offered a reward to everyone who brought in a dead cobra. This worked brilliantly until people discovered a brilliant business model – they began to breed cobras, and then kill them. The government was horrified, and scrapped the reward system. People didn’t know what do with their cobra farms and set their now-worthless snakes free. The cobra population promptly went up again.
Can you think of something in the Indian context that similarly backfired? (Hint: The Delhi government’s odd-even scheme led to people buying second cars, or too many loan moratoriums create bad loans can further discourage banks to lend?). Read more here.