Women participation in jobs drops with a last-quarter dip in 2023 although Bangladesh's total workforce increased in the bygone year, official statistics show.
Enrollments of their male counterpart in employment, on the other hand, increased in the last calendar year, further widening the male-female equations in labour force.
The hiatus is shown in the latest BBS quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) 2023 report, which experts see as a sort of setback in women's self-reliance.
"It's a bad news for the country that a significant number of women in labour force, who are half of the population, are not engaging in work. Rather their participation has dropped," says an analyst.
The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) in its latest QLFS has shown that Bangladesh's total female workforce in employment dropped to 24.51 million in 2023 from 24.86 million in the previous year (2022).
The women participation in the labour force dipped deeper in the latest quarter (Oct-Dec) of the past year to 24.67 million from 25.30 million in the corresponding quarter of the previous year, thereby pulling down the annual proportion.
The QLFS 2023 showed Bangladesh's total labour force having increased to 73.46 million in the past year out of its total 120.82-million-strong workable population--above 15 years of age.
Out of the total, 70.98 million are engaged in the job market while the remaining 2.47 million left unemployed.
According to the BBS findings, the employed workforce in Bangladesh increased by 0.51 million to 70.98 million in 2023 from 70.47 million in 2022.
Out of the total workforce, the number of males was recorded at 46.47 million last year. In the previous year, 2022, the number was 45.61 million, the survey data showed.
The national statistical bureau has also recorded that the total female employment dropped to 41.56 per cent in the past calendar year from 42.77 per cent in 2022.
Officials say the number of working women dropped in the year as the employment for them plunged much in the last quarter compared to other quarters of the year.
In the last quarter (October-December) 2023, the women participation in jobs dropped significantly by 1.48 percentage points to 41.72 per cent, the BBS survey shows.
In the corresponding period (Oct-Dec) of 2022, the participation of females in employment was 43.20 per cent.
Meanwhile, the total male labour force in the country increased to 48.11 million out of the total 73.45 million in 2023.
In 2022, the total men in the workforce in Bangladesh were recorded at 47.27 million out of the total 73.45-million labour force.
Policy Research Institute (PRI) Executive Director and economist Dr Ahsan H Mansur notes that women participation in the country's industrial jobs is very negligible except for the ready-made garment (RMG) industry.
"However, the woman jobs in RMG are getting reduced over the years due to shifting into high-tech production by the industry. The heavy dependence on a single job-creation sector --RMG -- has now affected the overall employment creation for the female," says Dr Mansur.
Although females are getting involved with service sector, their employment in industrial sector will have to be boosted, the policy researcher suggests.
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