If household works were paid, the additional value of the works done by women would be equivalent to 87% of the current GDP as they spent on an average over seven hours a day in household chores without being paid and economically recognised, said Centre for Policy Dialogue.
The think-tank revealed the findings of a study on the woman’s contribution to the Bangladesh economy at a dialogue in Dhaka yesterday.
CPD, in partnership with Manusher Jonno Foundation, organised the dialogue on “How much women contribute to the Bangladesh economy: Results from an empirical study.”
The study recommended Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics taking policy reforms so that unaccounted activities are reflected in the GDP. It also called for expanding civil amenities like access to safe drinking water, providing natural gas for cooking and setting up day-cares for children so workloads on women are reduced. The recommendations also include elimination of gender-based wage discrimination.
The study said while a man dabbles with unpaid family works for about 2.5 hours daily, a woman was found involved in such works for 7.7 hours a day, around three times higher compared to man.
CPD said if the woman’s household works were counted on the basis of willingness to accept method, the contribution would be equivalent to 87.2% of GDP (of FY2013-14). However, if it is based on replacement cost method, the contribution would be 76.8% of the GDP of the same fiscal year.
According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the GDP in the fiscal was Tk13,50,920.4 crore at the current prices.
The study was conducted by CPD research director Fahmida Khatun, research fellow Towfiqul Islam Khan and reseacrh associate Shahida Parvin.
The organisation carried out the study with an attempt to estimate economic values of woman’s unaccounted activities and make recommendation for capturing woman’s contribution to the economy with a view to improving their status in the family and society.
The study methodology includes primary data collected through questionnaire-based household survey, focus group discussions, and secondary data was collected from the published national and international sources.
The study is based on a comprehensive survey of 13,640 individuals aged 15 years and above. Of them, 8,320 are female and 5,320 are male residing in 5,670 households located in 378 primary sampling units across 64 districts of the country.
Among the households, 585 were from Barisal Division, 885 from Chittagong, 1,335 from Dhaka, 735 from Khulna, 795 from Rajshahi, 720 from Rangpur and 615 from Sylhet.
The survey was conducted during March to May 2014.
Fahmida Khatun said only 3.25% of the employed women are working in the government sector and 8.25% in the private sector in Bangladesh while the rest remain unrecognised.
She said the remaining 89.5% are employed in the informal sector with varying and often unpredictable earning patterns or as it so often happens, work without payment.
The unpaid work performed by women does not fall within the organised market economy and thus do not get counted in the national income, Fahmida said.
She stressed that such non-recognition also leads to undervaluation of economic contribution by women, which also lowers their social status to men.
Manusher Jonno Foundation executive director Shaheen Anam said women are still “dis-powered and the discrimination and violence is going on.”
Director General of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) Mustafa K Mujeri said a proper study needs to be conducted to have a clear perception about the contribution of women in the economy.
Hameeda Hossain of Ain O Salish Kendra said multidisciplinary approaches are needed to address the issues.
“We need to find out the cultural factors as we know women are working in labor force, however, we are not recognising it. There are also the matters of political factors like insecurity.”
World Bank’s lead economist Salman Zaidi underscored the need to improve an efficient service delivery to help women get access to the facilities they should have.
Bangladesh Mahila Parishad president Ayesha Khanam urged to include the woman’s household works issue in the 7th Five-Year Plan.
Faustina Pereira, director at Human Rights and Legal Aid Services of BRAC, said nothing can be changed unless there is changes in structure and mindset while making policies.
BUILD CEO Ferdous Ara Begum put importance woman’s security in workplaces. Former finance adviser to last caretaker government Mirza Azizul Islam said the employments for women have to be increased in formal paid sector.
Planning Minister AHM Mostafa Kamal said the limitations of the government as it “cannot do anything abruptly without discussion with the development partners.”
He said there will be no wage discrimination if it is under the same job category. “We are near Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam in wage gap elimination and it continues to improve. The government has some long-term development goals which cannot be achieved without participation of womenfolk,” the minister said.
He also asked for specific plans or suggestions on changing the relevant laws to recognise works of the women.
“Give us specific plans on how to bring unrecognised women into this. Give us specific proposals, we will discuss and consider it for implementation.”