9. Examining China and India’s Path to a Gender- (Im)Balanced Growth: Reflections from the Post-Reform Eras

Narratives of economic growth and reform are normatively centred around a notion of development that often tends to exclude the welfare and participation of vulnerable groups (especially women). Over the past few decades, the importance of gender equality and labour reforms has led to substantive changes in the domain of economic policy-making and the methods of data gathering which has resulted in the promotion of critical discourses on feminist economics, inclusive growth and the rights of women. This chapter utilizes these emerging discourses and applies them to two separate case studies of India and China. Post-reform growth experiences of the two states in the 2000–2015 period reveal insights into the relationship between gender equality and existing definitions of growth. Existing literature and studies, as well as data from the World Bank Gender Statistics is used to analyse the growth reforms with three core themes in each country during this period—labour force participation rate, gendered distribution of earnings, and developments in the care economy. A feminist re-imagination of growth is suggested for both nations alongside their need to consider individual incentives to employment while making macro-level reform choices to promote inclusive growth.