More women than men, but less scope in employment

Women exceed men in number by more than 1.6 million (16 lakh 34 thousand), according to country’s latest population and housing census.

In terms of working-age, the number of women aged between 15 to 59 or 25 to 59 is also higher than men of the same age-group.

But, the economic activities do not reflect on that. Compared to men, women’s participation in labour is yet very low. The disparity rate has widened even more in cities.

According to demographers and economists, there aren’t as many working-age women in the labour-force as there should have been. Many girls who are married off in the middle of their studies or fall victim to child marriage remain out of the labour force after all. Many women in cities are also dropping off the labour force due to social and family reasons.

In village on the other hand, though there has been an increase of women participation in agriculture, there are no wages for them in most cases. So, their participation does not get considered as economic activities.

Under these circumstances of inequality in labour force, World Population Day is being observed today, Tuesday (11 July) with the slogan ‘Unleashing the power of gender equality: Uplifting the voices of women and girls to unlock our world's infinite possibilities’.

As per the Global Gender Gap Report 2023, published by World Economic Forum (WEF) on 20 June Bangladesh still struggles with almost 28 per cent of gender-based inequality. The amount of discrimination is the highest in economy and politics.

When it comes to economic participation and opportunities, there is still 56 per cent of disparity between men and women. Bangladesh in this case ranks 139th in the world. Plus, there’s 45 per cent gender discrimination in political empowerment.

Shameem Ara Khanam has been working in different banks for more than 25 years now. While being in the post of senior vice-president at a bank, she quit the job in 2018 on family grounds. She told Prothom Alo on 7 July, "I was feeling quite sad while quitting the job. But I comfort myself with the thought that she quit the job for the betterment of her children."

According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS)’s tri-monthly labour force survey 2022, while the inequality between men and women in the labour market has lessened slightly compared to the report of 2016-17, it’s still above 37 per cent.

Rural women’s participation in labour has gone up by almost 11 per cent. So, the gender inequality gap has decreased to 29 per cent in villages. Meanwhile in cities, the inequality rate went up to 56 per cent after women’s participation being slashed by almost eight per cent.

Professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University, Shormindo Nilormi told Prothom Alo that one of the key goals of increasing investment in female education was to amplify women’s skills and to involve them in the labour force.

The number of women of a certain age group, who were supposed to enter the labour force in the past seven years, didn’t increase accordingly. Any return of the government and social expenditure made on their skill-building cannot be found in the economy.  

In the opinion of economist Shormindo Nilormi, it is necessary to create an enabling work environment for women by engaging them in institutional labour. How crucial the facilitating environment is can be realized from the incidents of female entrepreneurs Tairin Sultana (28) and Maria Akhter (30).

Tairin told Prothom Alo on 7 July that she started a business of herbal skin and hair care products with the name ‘Shajgoj’ before the corona period. Within three months she became a ‘Lakhopoti’ (Tk 100,000) entrepreneur on women entrepreneurs’ online platform ‘WE’.

During the corona period, she moved from Dhaka to Chattogram because of her husband’s job. But she couldn’t continue the business any longer after that because of the shortage of raw materials there.

Maria said, she began a startup of marketing readymade children food under the name ‘Pure Park BD’, back in 2019. Following the sudden death of her husband Maksudul Hasan in June last year, she took both of her children and moved to her mother’s house in Faridpur. Since the delivery charge has now doubled, customers from Dhaka are not making orders with her like before anymore.

Director of the Information, Education and Motivation (IEM) Unit of the Directorate General of Family Planning Abdul Latif Molla said that government is working to prepare the ground of women empowerment. They are focusing more on reducing child marriage and childbirth through surgery while emphasising on adolescent medical care, he added.

In 2020, professor of agricultural economics at Bangladesh Agricultural University Ismat Ara Begum in a research paper titled ‘Putting Women in the Centre of Agriculture’ said that women’s participation in agriculture has increased 10 per cent compared to men. But only 15 per cent women get paid.

Chief of Population Planning and Research division at the Bangladesh office of United Nations Population Fund M Shahidul Islam said that women participate more in less evaluated sectors of agriculture.

To reduce the disparity, women’s participation has to be increased in the industries and service sectors. Breaking out of the evil cycle of gender-based inequality wouldn’t be possible, in case of failure to ensure women’s participation in economy, he added.