Raw deal

A new report released by the International Labor Organization and the Asian Development Bank calls on governments to reduce Asia’s overreliance on the informal sector and for a rights-based approach to promote equal access to quality education and training for millions of girls and women.

The report - Women and Labor Markets in Asia: Rebalancing for Gender Equality - shows that 45 percent of the vast productive potential of Asian women remains untapped, compared to just 19 percent for men.

Sukti Dasgupta, a senior employment specialist at the International Labor Organization says policies which work for men do not always work for women.

“Social protection policies or pension policies need to take into account the fact that women may be entering and exiting the labor market over their life cycle because of their reproductive roles,” she points out.

“Secondly, women entrepreneurship needs to be promoted in a more comprehensive manner where access to credit and access to land for women is legislated in a stronger fashion."

Some progress but more work needed

Dasgupta adds that a lot of progress has been made over the years and the occupational segregation that existed in the past is not so stark today. However, she deplores the fact that women are usually occupied at a lower level. Moreover, they suffer disproportionately when there is a financial setback, as in the recent global crisis.

“It was women who lost their jobs in the tens and thousands,” she points out. “Those who did not lose their jobs had to make do with know poorer working conditions. Our surveys found that in some cases they had to accept lower wages because their overtime was cut and they couldn’t get paid leave.”

Even before the financial crisis, Asia was estimated to be losing more than 42 billion dollars a year because of limits on women’s access to employment opportunities.

No option but to work

Dasgupta adds that in Asia, especially where there is a large rural workforce, poor-quality jobs pose a greater labor market challenge than unemployment “partly because in the absence of social protection policy, people simply do not have the option of not working, especially poorer people.”

“Their only asset is their labor, so they have to work, in no matter what kind of jobs. And for women who already face discrimination in the labor market, their access to the better jobs is obviously smaller."

The report makes recommendations on the changes that governments and societies need to make in order to increase quality employment options for women. “The reason why there is so much gender inequality in Asia is partly to do with the prevailing social norms and the fact that these have also got into the policies and programs that shape the labor market in Asia. These are, at the end of the day, not written in stone and change has happened in the past and is possible.”

These changes include supporting women entrepreneurs, reducing Asia’s overreliance on the informal sector; promoting equal access to quality education and training, and introducing gender-responsive social protection for Asia’s 734 million female workers.

Author: Sherpem Sherpa
Editor: Anne Thomas