[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

Came across this interesting analysis on X by @Surajbrf on the evolution of India's GDP per capita (in terms of PPP) in comparison to other developing countries around the world....

Very interesting presentation. Thank you for sharing it. So long as we can cruise along at 6% to 7% GDP growth on an average for next 20 years, which is imminently doable, we'll get to a happy place with regards to substantial reduction of poverty. Reduction of poverty and hopefully reduction of income inequality remain our prime goals.

Some may disagree but I believe that a 6% to 7% growth which will roughly double or GDP every 1/2 a generation and increase it 4X roughly once every 23 to 25 years is the right sustainable pace for us. It is not just about pure GDP growth. there is a whole massive train of social change, institutional building, political maturing, inculcation of civic sense and so much more that has to move along at roughly the same pace. all of these are needed to grow roughly in tandem for the economic growth to become lasting and seep its benefits into society.

India IMHO has achieved a lot in terms of economic growth married to democracy continuing to function, social fabric holding together, and all the negative centrifugal forces that tug at the nation being kept at bay.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Reduction of poverty and hopefully reduction of income inequality remain our prime goals.

In general its probably expected that growth of GDP reduces poverty. However, I am unconvinced it will reduce income inequality. If anything income inequality appears to be on the rise in many countries. The USA to name one country with a good track record of GDP growth.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-t...th-inequality/

Many western societies have managed to reduce poverty considerable, but income inequality is a different matter altogether

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ome_inequality

What do you believe needs to happen not only reduce poverty but also reduce income inequality?

Jeroen

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

What do you believe needs to happen not only reduce poverty but also reduce income inequality?

Very valid question. There must be many solutions I'm sure. I am no economist but I'll pick three.

First prioritizing the shareholder as the main and almost only stakeholder in a business. Businesses, the successful ones, are major creators of wealth for those it considers essential to wealth generation. And the reward mechanism be it profit share or stock options or direct ownership generates wealth out of proportion {in my opinion} to the effort and in more or less direct proportion to the risk. It makes the recipients richer by miles over the rest. It creates, based on my personal experience {others may differ}, difference of multiples between the salaried employee vs one with options vs those with options & a profit share vs the owner shareholder with direct share ownership. Private equity, NYC investment bankers, Milton Friedman et al have created an atmosphere where you cannot provide space for the returns to be provided to the other stakeholders - employees, vendors, and sometimes even customers while questioning the culture of sacrificing a lot to serve the shareholder. I write this not as a disgruntled employee but as the ex-owner of 2 businesses and someone who benefited from the system.

A second pick would be free or subsidized education for all both at school or university. Here countries such as Germany, Denmark, & Norway, amongst others, have excelled - very high quality education and free. Few factors lift up a family more than education and even one member breaking into the next economic layer. Here the American system of higher education at the expense of the student aka the youngest member of society, is the worst. Several top US Universities have endowment funds the interest on which alone can subsidize over half the tuition cost of a large percentage of students and yet the choose not to do that and sit on fund bases extending into tens of billions of $.

The first two talk of uplifting. This third point talks of preventing a marginal family from slipping back into poverty or generally wrecking their ability to pay for the life they need. And this 3rd point is a major health catastrophe of a family member. A vast majority of the poor across the third world live one health crises away from poverty from which they often never recover because the savings burnt up in solving the health crises means kids get pulled out of school, elder kids must go work {often not legal, but necessary}, meagre savings and assets get wiped out etc.

I'm sure there are other points around nutrition, opportunity, home ownership, access to affordable capital and so on.

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

but I believe that a 6% to 7% growth which will roughly double or GDP every 1/2 a generation and increase it 4X roughly once every 23 to 25 years is the right sustainable pace for us.

Looks like we share the same school of thought. This is something that I've discussed with my particularly opinionated group of friends (which includes myself offcourse) much to their abhorration. The East Asian model has never worked and will never work in a society like India simply because it requires certain cultural characteristics just not present in our culture - factors like subservience to a single central authority (which in India has always been fragmented) & shame-based culture of saving face (which in India exists only inside the family).

I don't know how many of you have noticed the distinct differences of how Europeans and East Asians behave - Europeans are generally driven by 'guilt' rather than 'shame' which is why the Germans still talk about 'never again' while the Japanese still pretend nothing ever happened. In societies like Japan, China, Korea and perhaps even Vietnam, it is possible to mobilize the public into a single goal such as mass industrialization because their culture demands it.

Indian culture in my view falls bang right in the middle (as is its geography) where Indians tend to have a heavy 'shame' factor inside the home, but you can't shame Indians into say not littering in public for example. Similarly, it's really not possible to mobilize the entire population in a country like India the way it is possible in East Asian countries. So, India as per my view will follow a much more organic & drawn-out growth process like the US did but will eventually get there. It's remarkable how similar India is to the US in various aspects - the imperfect democracy, institutionalised corruption that actually helps growth at times, identity politics, racist zoning laws - the lot! The Westminister model didn't fit India by accident, Indian society has always consisted of multiple poles & levels of power balancing one another. There is a video on this whole concept (sharing below).

There is never going to be a 'Kranti' (revolution) in India, it will always be incremental changes where we take two steps forward and one step back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c4u..._channel=Kraut

[V.Narayan]

Trump's Tariffs Wreak Havoc, India's Exports Clock Sharpest Fall In 20 Months In February

India’s merchandise exports recorded a steep 10.9% drop in February, marking their sharpest decline in 20 months. The downturn in outbound shipments, which fell to $36.91 billion in February 2025 from $41.4 billion clocked in the same period a year earlier, was accompanied by a significant contraction in imports, bringing the trade deficit to a three-and-a-half-year low of $14.05 billion.

Several key sectors saw contractions, including gems and jewellery (-20.7 per cent), drugs and pharmaceuticals (-1.5 per cent), organic and inorganic chemicals (-24.5 per cent), petroleum products (-29.2 per cent), and engineering goods (-8.6 per cent). However, certain segments showed resilience, with rice exports growing by 13.2 per cent, electronic goods by 26 per cent, and readymade garments by 4 per cent. Meanwhile, services exports continued to show strength, rising by 23.6 per cent to $35.03 billion in February.

Uncertain times lie ahead as the established world order and agreed upon rules of trade & commerce are being upended. Somewhere deep inside the Trump administration understands that its mountain of debt and its mammoth trade deficit are both the cause of and the risk to the $ as the global reserve currency.

[Samurai]

It is generally believed that gender pay gap exists. But is it for the similar jobs?

In this Australian Senate committee hearing, Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) reveals that the pay gap is not really for similar jobs. Instead, they are averaging the salaries of all males and females across all jobs. So, it is really gender employment gap. This gap will vanish only if you have equal number of male and females at every level, in every company, across all industries.

And this agency (WGEA) employs 78% women, and the leadership team is mostly women. I guess it is safe to say women on average earn higher than men in WGEA using their gender pay gap logic. The irony...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0rVyBaB0hg

[Jeroen]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/addre...f-global-h8hbe

Enjoy,

Jeroen

[kiku007]

Originally Posted by Samurai

It is generally believed that gender pay gap exists. But is it for the similar jobs?

And this agency (WGEA) employs 78% women, and the leadership team is mostly women. I guess it is safe to say women on average earn higher than men in WGEA using their gender pay gap logic. The irony...

A poor farmer has a son and a daughter. Given financial and societal constraints, that include concerns about safety and cultural norms the father chooses to educate his son while confining his daughter to farm and household work. This stems from the reality that men have a better shot at becoming successful when compared to women.

The son studies diligently and becomes a well-paid doctor. Meanwhile, the daughter completes her 12th standard, gets married, and takes a part-time job as a receptionist at a local clinic.

Neither the farmer nor his son are villains in this story. The real question is not, "If the daughter had become a doctor, wouldn’t she be earning as much as her brother?" Instead, we should ask: "What can society do to remove the barriers that forced the father to make this choice in the first place?"

Think about it. Why were our mothers and grandmothers often less educated than our fathers and grandfathers, leaving them financially dependent on men? There may be exceptions, but this was the general reality. Thankfully, times are changing, which is why today, our wives and sisters are just as educated, if not more so and increasingly financially independent.

If you are really interested to know about Australia and the gender pay gap, then you can do so in the following links,

https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers...0250226-p5lf9a

https://www.wgea.gov.au/pay-and-gend...r-pay-gap-data

https://www.theguardian.com/australi...ernment-report

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-...wgea/104967394

P.S: It is illegal to pay a woman less than a man for the same job. I’d be shocked if anyone thinks that’s the issue Australia is trying to fix.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by kiku007

Think about it. Why were our mothers and grandmothers often less educated than our fathers and grandfathers, leaving them financially dependent on men? There may be exceptions, but this was the general reality. Thankfully, times are changing, which is why today, our wives and sisters are just as educated, if not more so and increasingly financially independent.

Congrats on completely missing the point.

My entire point was this... It is not gender wage gap, but gender employment gap. By calling it gender pay gap, these organizations perpetuate the myth that women are getting paid less for the same jobs. While the reality is labour participation among gender is not equal. That can be for various reasons.

By calling it gender pay gap, they are guilt-tripping employers for no reason.

Originally Posted by kiku007

P.S: It is illegal to pay a woman less than a man for the same job. I’d be shocked if anyone thinks that’s the issue Australia is trying to fix.

That's the impression that is given out all the time. Why are you shocked?

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by Samurai

It is generally believed that gender pay gap exists. But is it for the similar jobs? reveals that the pay gap is not really for similar jobs. Instead, they are averaging the salaries of all males and females across all jobs. So, it is really gender employment gap. This gap will vanish only if you have equal number of male and females at every level, in every company, across all industries.

It is quite easy to prove this with logic.

If pay gap exists for the same job/capability and is intentional, then women would naturally become more attractive to hire for a company. If you are an evil business owner, why not save 30% to 50% of salary costs by hiring women? After all, for some industries (like IT), employee costs are like 80% to 90% of overall expenses.

If a company feels/knows that hiring women actually saves costs significantly, the hiring practices will automatically lean towards that and we will have 70% women and 30% men in the workforce. That is, if this was true, there would natural PREFERENCE for women when it comes to hiring. Simply because it makes more financial sense for the company to do so.

But since we have only 10% to 30% women workforce in most companies, something else is the problem, not pay gap.

[androdev]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

It is quite easy to prove this with logic.
..

The counter argument is that women are not allowed to bring their best to workplace as they are expected to juggle with 100 other things whereas men can just outsource everything else and just focus on career. Employers know this and hence they prefer to hire men.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by androdev

The counter argument is that women are not allowed to bring their best to workplace as they are expected to juggle with 100 other things whereas men can just outsource everything else and just focus on career. Employers know this and hence they prefer to hire men.

We are on the same side, so it is not a counter argument . This is what I alluded to when I said "something else" is the issue. So focus of the policymakers, researchers and corporates should be on these "100 other things" that are obstacles for women. By focussing on pay gap, they are doing wrong diagnosis and hence prescribing wrong medicine.

One more piece of 'evidence' that can quickly prove if pay gap for same job experience/capability exists:

- Let's say an IT company has 30% women and 70% men in their workforce
- Let's say there are 10,000 layoffs because of cost cutting
- Do gender study statistical research on these layoffs.

Very likely, the layoffs percentage of women/men too will be approximately 30/70. However, if there was pay gap for the same experience/capability, logically 90% or 95% of those laid off should be men. Because the company can save millions of dollars by firing men and retaining women.

Will it really be the case? If no, why?

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/addre...f-global-h8hbe

Enjoy,

Jeroen

Thank you, I love it when you give me links supporting my point.

The above article, shares my understanding of gender pay gap.

As we navigate the complexities of the modern workforce, let us strive to create inclusive environments where individuals are compensated fairly based on merit, irrespective of gender.

While I agree with their definition, I am not convinced that employers intentionally pay less for women. Then SmartCat's point comes to bite us, why aren't all employers hiring women if they are working for less.

Originally Posted by kiku007

If you are really interested to know about Australia and the gender pay gap, then you can do so in the following links,

https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers...0250226-p5lf9a

https://www.wgea.gov.au/pay-and-gend...r-pay-gap-data

https://www.theguardian.com/australi...ernment-report

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-...wgea/104967394

At least two of the above links support your definition of gender wage gap, which is actually gender employment gap.

If the mandate of Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) is actually to achieve parity, why have they failed to achieve such parity in their own organization? Why 78% of their staff are women, and most of the leadership is women? How is that "Equality", which is part of their agency name?

Employers hire from the available candidate pool. If such a pool is skewed, how are they supposed to achieve this parity?

Industries with jobs that need high physical strength, or those that are dangerous are full of men. Women rarely enter those industries. How are they supposed to achieve gender pay parity with your definition?

This whole confusion is due to the belief that men and women think similarly and have same preferences and same priorities. There is a clear bi-modal distribution in preferences/priorities in reality. When government/corporate policy is based on wishful thinking and not reality, it causes immense harm to the society.

I absolutely believe that men and women should be given equal rights and opportunities. But equal outcome is up to the men and women, we should let them pick what they want and not force them against their preference to achieve some utopian goal.

Rafael Nadal gave an great answer on this:

https://youtu.be/V17wEJy96_I

[PreludeSH]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

It is quite easy to prove this with logic.

If pay gap exists for the same job/capability and is intentional, then women would naturally become more attractive to hire for a company. If you are an evil business owner, why not save 30% to 50% of salary costs by hiring women? After all, for some industries (like IT), employee costs are like 80% to 90% of overall expenses.

.

I am not sure about Australia but women do get paid less in STEM jobs and its proven. To hire only women if their pay is less wouldn't get that many. That leads to why there are less women in that field and at a particular level of expertise. I have seen at levels of doc or post doc level in the best of universities and research companies.

As you say there are evil business owners/managers who use biological reasons leading them to not accept them as equal and it does impact them during layoffs too. Most things happen not due to policies but due to personal beliefs of people in responsible positions.

[kiku007]

Originally Posted by Samurai

It is not gender wage gap, but gender employment gap. By calling it gender pay gap, these organizations perpetuate the myth that women are getting paid less for the same jobs. While the reality is labour participation among gender is not equal. That can be for various reasons.

By calling it gender pay gap, they are guilt-tripping employers for no reason.

I don't want to get into the debate on what you would like to call it. Your choice.

However, you picked a YT video from One Nation Senator Mr. Malcolm Roberts and used it to insinuate that organisations such as Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) are perpetuating myths. I will address that first and later touch upon the genius and credibility of the Senator.




Source: https://www.wgea.gov.au/about/workplace-gender-equality
Australia is moving in the right direction and I'm fine with it.

Let's get to Mr. Malcolm Roberts.

• He's a Climate Change denier.
  He said that, from the 1930s to the 1970s, during the period of the greatest industrialisation in human history, atmospheric temperatures actually “cooled”.
  Another inconvenient fact, temperatures statistically have not been warming since 1995,” he said. “Temperatures are now cooler than 130 years ago and this is the reverse of what we’re blatantly told by the Bureau of Meteorology that has manipulated cooling trends into false warming trends.
  
• He wanted OZExit.
  He believes climate change is a global conspiracy created by bankers seeking to establish a worldwide government.
  Mr Roberts told the Senate "We need an OzExit" to escape the "unelected swill" of the UN."
  
• I can't even post One Nation's policies without potentially breaking some forum rules.

I'm not shooting the messenger. I'm just pointing out the target audience of Mr. Roberts. Up to you to take him seriously to prove your point.