Women’s participation in the stock market, historically a domain of men, has surged in recent months.
As of March 4, women held 686,986 of the total number of Beneficiary Owners’ (BO) accounts, according to data from the Central Depository Bangladesh Limited.
In January, the number was 660,633, meaning more than 26,000 female investors entered the market in the last two months.
The government and both the bourses have taken many initiatives like training, creating separate booths for female traders and many more, thus eliminating any chance of gender discrimination in the capital market, said Khugesta Nur-E-Naharin, managing director of Modern Securities.
As a result, the troupe of female investors are getting bigger by the day.
A change in people’s mindsets have allowed women to make big contributions to the economy, said Naharin, also a former director of the Dhaka Stock Exchange.
“When more women work, economies grow,” she added.
Meanwhile, a research in 2020 by the International Finance Corporation found that out of the total of 2,871 directors in the companies listed with the DSE, 507 were women.
The research found that the board directors of 18 per cent of the listed companies were women in 2018, up from 17 per cent in 2017.
But the study also showed that out of the 610 independent directors serving on the boards of listed companies, only 30 were female.
Empowerment is when a woman or man can make decisions about her life, the society, and the country she lives in, said Rupali Chowdhury, managing director of Berger Paints Bangladesh.
“We need to ensure equality and empowerment, but this is not an equal world.”
According to her, the credit for women empowerment belongs to the working-class women.
“Those of us sitting in this room are blessed and we cannot be talking about our successes when the paradigm shift in this country has been brought about by female garment workers who comprise a significant portion of employment. They came forward from rural areas and showed us the way,” she added.