Indian women flex economic muscle - Marcus Gee

A pretty woman on a pink motor scooter gives a lift to a man stranded by a village roadside. He tells her he's in town to see "some silly village girl" that his matchmaking parents want him to meet.

After buzzing him around town on the back of the scooter, she drops him at the train station and lets him in on a secret: She is that silly girl. As she drives away, she throws her head back and laughs, while the chagrined young man watches her disappear. "Why should boys have all the fun?" says the television advertisement for Pleasure motor scooters.

One result of India's economic boom has been the growing emancipation of women. Once tethered to home, father and husband, Indian women are making their own decisions about marriage, work, when to have children and - most important for business - what to buy. With jobs and financial independence, many women are expressing their new freedom by shopping till they drop.

Throwing aside the docility and frugality of old, India's consuming women are becoming a powerful economic force, watched closely by Indian and global companies hoping to sell to the country's fast-growing middle class.
In earlier times, "you bought a steel cupboard and hoped it would last 30 years so you could pass it on to your kids," said Nonita Kalra, editor of the Indian edition of Elle magazine. "Now they want something new all the time. They're buying shoes, they're buying phones, they're buying fridges, they're travelling, they're crowding into the hypermalls."

One leading economist predicts that the rising incomes and consumption of women could add $35-billion to India's gross domestic product over the next five years, lifting consumer demand by 10 per cent.

A study by Grey Global Group showed that 51 per cent of young single women in big cities say they believe that a big house and a nice car are essential to happiness. In smaller cities, the figure was 86 per cent.

On the streets of Mumbai, billboards advertise a fashion line unabashedly called Millionaire Woman.

Ms. Kalra traces the rise of female consumerism to the introduction of satellite television. With hundreds of channels from India and around the world on tap, women were suddenly exposed to new products and lifestyles.

Shows like Friends and Will and Grace showed independent, assertive women making lives of their own, "all polished and pretty. You just saw the whole world opening up."

Today's television is full of ads pitching blue jeans, cars and cosmetics at the new Indian woman.

Hero Honda's series of ads for the Pleasure scooter show fun-loving women enjoying the sleek two-wheeler, offered with an oval instrument panel and trendy colours designed to appeal to female buyers. Another ad for a Mahindra SUV shows a woman pushing a male driver out of the way so she can take the wheel.

Urban, middle-class women are still a small minority in a country where the average woman earns just $5 a day - a third that of men - and female literacy stands at 47.8 per cent, compared with the male rate of 73.4 per cent. But they are an increasingly influential minority and their numbers are growing fast. A recent study by global consultancy McKinsey & Co. predicted that India's middle class would grow by 10 times to more than 500 million people over the next two decades, making India the world's fifth biggest consumer market.

Women are a big part of that story. A recent survey showed that 31 per cent of urban working women have their own investments. It also showed that 35 per cent of women from car-owning families had been involved in the buying decision, while 45 per cent had a part in buying new computers.

"Buying gives you a certain sense of power," said Alia Ramaswamy, 26, a Delhi social worker. She admits that after weeks of working with the poor, she enjoys going out for a bit of "retail therapy."

"Theoretically, I hate consumerism, but I still find shopping therapeutic. When you feel sad, you go buy things. When you feel happy, you go buy things."

Richa Sood, 20, shopping in a suburban Delhi mall on her lunch break, said today's women believe in "pampering themselves to the core" after a hard week at work. "My mother shopped only when she need to. I just go out and buy."

Retailers like their attitude. Nilamoy Ghosh, manager of the Guess fashion outlet at another mall, said women shoppers are intensely brand conscious, snapping up goods by Zara, Replay, Benetton and the host of other international retailers who have come to India over the past few years.

Few hesitate over the price. "Everything they want, they buy," Mr. Ghosh said.