Cricket Pay Parity & Gender issue

• In a recent announcement, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) stated that its centrally-contracted men's and women's players would receive equal match fees.
• The Global Gender Gap Index 2022 estimates that at the current rate of advancement, it will take 132 years to achieve full parity, so the action is a significant step toward achieving gender pay parity.

What do we know about the rise in the fee for female players?

• The women's players will now receive Rs. 15 lakh for each Test match, Rs. 6 lakh for each ODI, and Rs. 3 lakh for each T20 International. They had been paid Rs 1 lakh for a white-ball match and Rs 4 lakh for a test match up until this point.
• Women's cricket players are still paid the same annual retainer — Rs. 50 lakh for Grade A, Rs. 30 lakh for Grade B, and Rs. 10 lakh for Grade C.
• Depending on their grade, men who participate in more games are paid between Rs 1 and Rs 7 crore.

Has a different nation adopted equal pay in sports?

• In terms of international cricket, India is now only the second nation to adopt equal pay.
• In 2022, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) and the country's players' association reached an agreement that allowed the female cricketers to receive salaries on par with those of the male players.
• This comes four months after the women's national football team of the United States triumphed in a six-year legal battle with their federation over equal pay.
• The four major tennis tournaments—the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and US Open—offer equal prize money as a result of efforts to increase pay equity between male and female players.

What Obstacles Exist in the Way of Gender Pay Parity in Sports?

Revenue Generation:

• The claim is that male players produce higher returns than female players do.
• A few factors are taken into account when evaluating the financial advantages of sports, including ticket sales, sports merchandise, and endorsements, among others. This, however, depends on the audience and fan base, which are in turn influenced by sports' androcentric nature.
• Due to societal constraints, women joined sports much later than men. As a result, women's sports now have less "entertainment value."

Variable Performance:

• According to this argument, men should be paid more because they are "stronger" and can compete more successfully in sports than women.
• A rule based on the idea that women are physically weaker than men dictates that men play five sets per match and women play three.
• Despite the fact that women had proven they could and would play five sets, decision-makers (mostly men) held the opinion that the standard of the game would suffer if women played five sets.

Issues with Representation:

• The persistent pay gap in the sport industry is also a result of the under-representation of women in sports governance structures. Although this has only recently occurred, female representation in some governance structures has improved. Additionally, most governing bodies still require a stronger push to increase the representation of women.

What is the Global Gender Gap Index 2022's Key Finding?

• The Global Gender Gap Index measures how well nations are doing in achieving gender parity across four key areas, including economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political representation.

The performance of India

• Out of a total of 146 nations, India came in at position 135 on the list.
• India's overall rating increased from 0.625 (in 2021) to 0.629, which is the seventh-highest rating it has received in the previous 16 years.
• India placed 140th out of 156 nations in 2021.

Political Empowerment (Percentage of Women in Parliament and in Ministerial Positions):

• India ranks the highest (48th out of 146).
• Notwithstanding its rank, its score is quite low at 0.267.
• Some of the best ranking countries in this category score much better.
• For instance, Iceland is ranked 1 with a score of 0.874 and Bangladesh is ranked 9 with a score of 0.546.

Economic Participation and Opportunity (Percentage of women in labour force, Wage Equality for similar work, Earned income):

• India ranks a lowly 143 out of the 146 countries in contention even though its score has improved over 2021 from 0.326 to 0.350.
• In 2021, India was pegged at 151 out of the 156 countries.
• India’s score is much lower than the global average, and only Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan are behind India on this metric.

Educational Attainment (Literacy Rate and the Enrolment rates in Primary, Secondary and Tertiary education):

• India ranks 107th out of 146, and its score has marginally worsened since last year.
• In 2021, India was ranked 114 out of 156.

Health and Survival (Sex ratio at birth and Healthy Life Expectancy):

• India is ranked the last (146) among all the countries.
• Its score hasn’t changed from 2021 when it was ranked 155th out of 156 countries.

What are the Indian Initiatives to reduce the Gender Gap in Social, Economic and Political Life?

• Beti Bachao Beti Padhao
• Mahila Shakti Kendra
• Sukanya Samriddhi Yojna
• Female Entrepreneurship

• Political Reservation: Government has reserved 33% of the seats in Panchayati Raj Institutions for women.

• Capacity Building of Elected Women Representatives:
• It is conducted with a view to empowering women to participate effectively in the governance processes.