More than a century has passed since the commemoration of the first International Women's Day in 1911. During the first observation of the Day demonstrators advocated for an end to gender discrimination and for the promotion of women's rights to work, vote, receive an education and hold public office. On March 08 this year the International Women's Day put the spotlight on women's economic rights and gender parity in those respects. The emphasis is an indication that in spite of many successes achieved for gender equality women remained severely handicapped on the economic front. After more than a century of progress towards gender equality, women's economic empowerment lags far behind that of men. That this is common to both developed and developing countries speak of a universal cultural bias at work. The discussion below highlights the problem with facts and figures relating to Bangladesh.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), women's participation in labour force is 34 per cent at present while male participation rate is 81 per cent. Despite significant progress in recent decades the labour market remains divided along gender lines and progress towards gender equality in the economy has stalled. From the perspective of economic empowerment 34 per cent participation rate is too low a figure. What is more worrying is the tardy pass of progress in women's participation in the labour force. When the overall participation rate is disaggregated into sectors a rather dismal picture emerges. From the BBS report it is seen that 64.84 per cent women in the labour force are engaged in agriculture. This is followed by employment in manufacturing sector which represents 11.17 per cent of women in labour force. About 10 per cent women are employed as community and personal services sectors majority of whom work as domestic help. Only 3.25 per cent of all working women are employed by the government, in comparison to 8.25 per cent in the case of working men.
The figures quoted above reveal that majority of women in the labour force is engaged in low-paid works. The dominant sector providing work for women, agriculture, offers low wages because of the low productivity of the sector. Besides, gender discrimination forces women agricultural labourer to accept lower wages than male workers for the same type of job. Even women workers employed in many manufacturing units get lower wages than male workers because of discrimination. Only in the garment industries there is a semblance of parity in terms of wages and allowances. This is because of the relatively higher demand for women workers in garment industries. A survey of 173 factories conducted by the Dhaka-based Asian Center for Development (ACD) shows that an average sized factory employs nearly 950 workers of which 65 per cent are female and 35 per cent are male. The study found that male to female ratio varies across industry types. While the average figure is 65 per cent for female workers it rises to around 80 per cent in some garment industries depending on their types (e.g. knitwear, woven, sweater, etc). The survey report reveals that less than 0.3 per cent of women workers have income below Tk. 6000 per month while 10 per cent of the workers' monthly family income is between Tk. 6000 and Tk. 12,000. According to Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2010, the average household income of an urban hardcore poor is Tk. 7226 and that of an urban poor is Tk. 8936. It is therefore seen that in terms of poverty line estimate around 5.1 per cent of the workers of the garment industry are in the urban poor household category. For hardcore poor category the percentage of garment workers is higher. Though the impact of garment industries on poverty alleviation of women workers is significant the sector has not succeeded in eliminating poverty altogether. Though data on wages for female workers in other manufacturing industries is not available it is believed that there impact on poverty reduction is not better than that in the garment sector - perhaps it is even less successful in this respect. No survey has been carried out so far on wages paid to housemaids and the general impression is that these are not above subsistence level. From anecdotal evidence it appears that payment of wages to housemaids is not regular and consistent.
Women in Bangladesh having higher education and belonging to upper middle class and wealthy families easily get jobs in corporate bodies, financial institutions and elsewhere in the modern economy. Illiterate and semi-literate female workers coming from poor or lower middle class background cannot aspire for these jobs. So there is a built-in barrier to well-paid jobs for poor female workers where gender factor is of no consequence. But even for the privileged class of female workers the salary is often lower than their male counterparts because of gender discrimination. According to a survey of International Finance Corporation (IFC) based on annual reports of randomly selected listed companies in Bangladesh in 2014, the women's participation on the boards of the companies is 17 per cent. Though significant from the point of view of women's representation on the corporate boards and compared to the benchmark figure of zero only a decade back, women have to go a long way to break the glass ceiling in corporate bodies which is the bastion of male dominance. For women from poor or even middle class families with reasonably good academic qualification reaching the corporate board is unthinkable. For them the barrier is not only of gender but also of class. In the discussion on gender parity this aspect of discrimination is often ignored.
Though outnumbered by male workers in government employment, female workers employed by the government receive the same salary as their male colleagues, There is no gender discrimination between them in terms of payment of salary and allowances and also in respect of promotions. In both government-owned and private banks have employed women in large number showing no or little discrimination on the ground of gender or class as long as they have requisite academic qualifications and skills. From a statement issued by the governor of Bangladesh Bank, 1069 female officials and employees are now working in 58 departments of the central bank. However, lacking higher education and skills not many women from the 35 per cent of the labour force have access to these jobs in the formal sector. Where poverty accounts for their lack of education and skills the class factor is obviously at work in engendering discrimination.
It is now obvious that there are two challenges involved in economically empowering women to enable them to reach gender parity. The first is to increase their participation in the labour force taking it from the present 34 per cent. The slogan of this year's International Women's Day, 50:50 parity by 2030 should serve as the loadstar in this endeavour. Increase in women's participation in the labour force will benefit the country through not only demographic dividend but also gender dividend. The first obstacle to achieve this goal is the engagement in unpaid household work. Not only this deprives women from participating in gainful employment, this also precludes them from making their due contribution to the nation's gross domestic product (GDP). Ways have to be found and arrangements made to relieve them of daily household chore. Sharing of the household work with male members, making baby-sitting centres available at workplaces are some of the important steps that need to be taken to increase women's participation in the labour force. It will not be easy to free women from household work because this involves change in the attitude of male members of the family.
The second challenge is to ensure equal pay for women engaged in similar work as men. This also involves breaking down tradition and entrenched attitudes prevailing in society. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), the United Nations specialised agency, noted that without targeted action, at the current rate, pay equity between men and women will not be achieved before 2086 or at least 71 years from now. With the spread of education and training for skills among women of all classes this long wait can be telescoped. What is needed is political will and commitment of policy makers. Women have been discriminated socially, politically and most importantly, economically from time immemorial in Bangladesh and elsewhere. It is high time to change the trend and change it fast.
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