Bangladesh achieves impressive gains in women's status, gender equality: WB
Friday, 14 March 2008
FE Report
Bangladesh has achieved impressive gains in women's status and gender equality, but access to reproductive health services, labour markets, physical security and role in decision-making need urgent attention, said a World Bank (WB) report released Thursday.
Titled "Whispers to Voices: Gender and Social Transformation in Bangla-desh," the report documents changes in norms, attitudes, and practices related to gender equality based on national surveys and field work and is a comprehensive analysis of key development outcomes. It also addresses important regional variations with a focus on Sylhet.
It concludes that there has been a far-reaching change in gender norms in Bangladesh, which has pervaded not only outcomes but also attitudes.
Women's role in decision-making is still small and restricted to the domestic sphere. And low access to land and property is an important part of their low voice in decision-making.
Less than 10 per cent of all women and less than 3 per cent of younger women have their names on marital property papers like rental agreement or title to land or a homestead.
The reservation of seats for women in Union Parishads has definitely enhanced their visibility and decision-making at the community level but still more needs to be done to give them equal responsibilities and resources.
This change has been a result of constructive policies and programmes that spurred much of the progress in gender equality, the report says. Between 1971 and 2004, Bangladesh halved its fertility rates. In much of the country today, girls' secondary school enrollment exceeds that of boys.
The gender gap in infant mortality has been closed. The micro-credit revolution continues to boost women's solidarity groups and earning potential, and vast numbers of young women are leaving their villages to work in garment factories where, in earlier generations, young women were rarely seen outside their homes.
The report says that while gender inequalities in children's health have diminished, Bangladeshi women still lack adequate access to reproductive health services. Almost 90 per cent of Bangladeshi women give birth at home, and over 86 per cent do not have a skilled birth attendant to assist. The reasons for not seeking care during pregnancy and child birth are primarily related to low appreciation of women's needs during this period.
In addition to changes in methods for delivering care, the report calls for increased efforts to use information, education, and communication to raise the demand for health services among women.
Bangladesh's success in girls' education is now well-known. The report says a new reality in education is emerging -boys are at risk of being "left behind" and this could potentially have serious impacts on social and familial cohesion.
Already there is evidence of "educational hypogamy" with a larger proportion of younger women compared to the older generation marrying men less educated than them.
There are also serious gaps in educational attainment between the rich and the poor and quality of schooling is an issue of concern. Poor children of either gender can rarely stay in school through to the upper grades. By Grade 9, when nearly 100 percent of children from rich families are enrolled, less than 20 percent of children from the poorest households are still in school. This gap in enrollment by poverty status at the lower secondary levels will be important to bridge for reasons of equity, but also for reasons of productivity.
The report emphasises that despite increasing education and declining fertility, women's labour force participation rates are very low although they have doubled in the last 10 years. Women's employment in South Asia is among the lowest in the world and Bangladesh is at the lower end of the South Asian spectrum.
Bangladesh has achieved impressive gains in women's status and gender equality, but access to reproductive health services, labour markets, physical security and role in decision-making need urgent attention, said a World Bank (WB) report released Thursday.
Titled "Whispers to Voices: Gender and Social Transformation in Bangla-desh," the report documents changes in norms, attitudes, and practices related to gender equality based on national surveys and field work and is a comprehensive analysis of key development outcomes. It also addresses important regional variations with a focus on Sylhet.
It concludes that there has been a far-reaching change in gender norms in Bangladesh, which has pervaded not only outcomes but also attitudes.
Women's role in decision-making is still small and restricted to the domestic sphere. And low access to land and property is an important part of their low voice in decision-making.
Less than 10 per cent of all women and less than 3 per cent of younger women have their names on marital property papers like rental agreement or title to land or a homestead.
The reservation of seats for women in Union Parishads has definitely enhanced their visibility and decision-making at the community level but still more needs to be done to give them equal responsibilities and resources.
This change has been a result of constructive policies and programmes that spurred much of the progress in gender equality, the report says. Between 1971 and 2004, Bangladesh halved its fertility rates. In much of the country today, girls' secondary school enrollment exceeds that of boys.
The gender gap in infant mortality has been closed. The micro-credit revolution continues to boost women's solidarity groups and earning potential, and vast numbers of young women are leaving their villages to work in garment factories where, in earlier generations, young women were rarely seen outside their homes.
The report says that while gender inequalities in children's health have diminished, Bangladeshi women still lack adequate access to reproductive health services. Almost 90 per cent of Bangladeshi women give birth at home, and over 86 per cent do not have a skilled birth attendant to assist. The reasons for not seeking care during pregnancy and child birth are primarily related to low appreciation of women's needs during this period.
In addition to changes in methods for delivering care, the report calls for increased efforts to use information, education, and communication to raise the demand for health services among women.
Bangladesh's success in girls' education is now well-known. The report says a new reality in education is emerging -boys are at risk of being "left behind" and this could potentially have serious impacts on social and familial cohesion.
Already there is evidence of "educational hypogamy" with a larger proportion of younger women compared to the older generation marrying men less educated than them.
There are also serious gaps in educational attainment between the rich and the poor and quality of schooling is an issue of concern. Poor children of either gender can rarely stay in school through to the upper grades. By Grade 9, when nearly 100 percent of children from rich families are enrolled, less than 20 percent of children from the poorest households are still in school. This gap in enrollment by poverty status at the lower secondary levels will be important to bridge for reasons of equity, but also for reasons of productivity.
The report emphasises that despite increasing education and declining fertility, women's labour force participation rates are very low although they have doubled in the last 10 years. Women's employment in South Asia is among the lowest in the world and Bangladesh is at the lower end of the South Asian spectrum.