The issue of women’s contribution to the national economy has emerged at the centre stage of development discourse in most countries. It is now widely accepted that women’s labour market participation is critical for improvement in their relative economic position, which also stimulates the efficiency and development potentials of the economy. However, not only on the ground of economic efficiency but also from equity and inclusive growth perspectives, it is imperative to have a greater level of engagement of females in the mainstream economic activities. While acknowledging the significant contribution women make in non-market activities, such as household work and caring of children and elderly at home, there is no denying the fact that a critical factor for ensuring inclusive growth in the economy requires larger participation of women in market-based productive activities. However, traditional social and gender norms, patriarchy, lack of education and skill, and narrow economic opportunities often restrict women’s participation in the labour market. This scenario is common in most of the developing countries in South Asia, Middle-East and North Africa.
Bangladesh witnessed a notable progress in the female labour market participation rate over the past three decades, from around 8% in the mid-1980s to almost 36% in 2016-17. A number of policy-driven changes during this period, especially family planning policies, education policies, microcredit opportunities and RMG focused export-oriented industrialization, can be attributed to this progress. However, in the recent decade, the impressive economic growth performance has not resulted in the rise in female labour market participation rate, which has remained stagnant at around 36%. Also, females’ labour market participation is primarily concentrated in low paid and low productive activities. The reasons lie in two major factors: the supply side factors and the demand side factors.
The empirical literature on Bangladesh’s labour market suggests that supply-side factors like child marriage, early pregnancy, reproductive and domestic responsibilities, and low level of skill and education restrict female labour market participation. Regrettably, the influences of these factors have not changed much in the recent decade with the economic progress of the country. On the demand side, in recent decade, slowing down of the growth of the readymade garment sector – the major sector of females’ wage employment, increased automation in the garment factories, sluggish private sector investment, lack of economic diversification, lack of social and work-place safety, lack of transport facilities for female workers, long working hours and overtime, and lack of women-friendly machine have adverse impact on female employment in particular.
Given the importance of gender norm centric domestic/care responsibilities of women, an important policy intervention can be the establishment of day-care facilities. The government has to provide support through tax rebate, cheaper credit facility etc. to the private sector in establishing day care centres at the workplace. In addition, strategies like those of extending the provision of maternity and post-maternity leave and introducing flexible and part-time working hour and distant working scheme can turn out to be useful in this regard.
There is no denying the fact that early marriage and early pregnancy act as critical constraints for females’ labour market participation in Bangladesh. In this connection, the importance of stricter and careful implementation of anti-child marriage laws cannot be overemphasized.
Assuring gender friendly environment in educational/training institutes (e.g. separate bus service for girls/females, toilet facilities etc.) as well as at workplaces can be instrumental for greater involvement of young women and girls at the secondary and tertiary level of education.
A low level of skills is one of the prime reasons for females’ inferior position in the labour market. It is not only a lack of skill but also a mismatch of skill offered by the traditional education system that is working against quality employment. In order to deal with such issues of skill mismatch, one of the most crucial issues is to align the curriculum with the ‘actual’ market demand. In this context, a number of policies like strengthening the collaboration between vocational institutes and industry, involving industry sector representatives in designing curriculum, linking secondary education along with the TVE programmes to the existing demand can be useful. With a view to endowing females with necessary skills, support at the initial stage of skill development (e.g. information centres at the upazila level, support desk at the upazila level financial institutions), further assistance and support at the stage of marketing of the products of self-employed females can turn out to be of significant importance.
To spread the benefits of technological change and automation more equitably, in the short run, different tax incentives and social protection programmes can be useful. In the medium to long term, there is a need to address the weakness in the investment climate with a view to removing barriers to the creation of new and higher productivity jobs with correspondingly higher wages in the sectors which can generate large scale employment for females.
In the context of Bangladesh, due to complex inheritance law, women’s right on land is often not clearly defined and that acts as a crucial constraint for their active participation in paid self-employed agricultural activities and in accessing credit in particular. Ownership of land is important for accessing credit, and absence of ownership can be a barrier to self-employment activities. There should be specific and flexible policies from the government in this regard to ease the credit constraint for women.
In terms of operationalizing the policies and strategies, both the Government as well as the private sector should play instrumental roles. However, given the state of market failure for the country, effective monitoring is essential from the Government for smooth operationalizing of the relevant policies.
Written by
Dr Selim Raihan
Professor of Economics, University of Dhaka
Executive Director, SANEM
Dr Sayema Haque Bidisha
Professor of Economics, University of Dhaka
Research Director, SANEM