Editor's Pick

Paid and unpaid

7 March 2010, 18:00 PM
EDITORIAL
Habiba Tasneem Chowdhury
AS the world marks International Women's Day and eulogises women and womanhood, we need to revisit the apparent advances made to diminish gender disparity and its actualisation. This calls for a clear understanding of the progress made towards women's socio-economic emancipation in the context of their work related to economy and development and the opportunities available to them. The turning point of the 20th century was the false dichotomy between women and work that became a socio-economic paradox of evolving theories and practices. Traditional structures of subsistence were based on physical work that was directly related to survival. Members of the family and community worked together. The role of men was as provider of sustenance and women were restricted to their primary role of mother. Gender differential gradually evolved from this fundamental conceptualisation of working spheres for women and men. This scenario changed with the advent of the industrial age. Work place shifted from farm to factories. Work denominator shifted from immediate needs based production and exchange of goods to monetised value system. Men started working outside their homestead in exchange of money, while women continued working within the household. Society metamorphosed from goods to money based economy where women were sidelined as their work was not considered "economic." This micro trend blending into a macro system evaluated work on monetary purchase capacity. Women's work further diminished in value when there was no means of gauging their labour in terms of payment and eventually the purchase freedom that resulted from it as compared to men receiving payment for their work. The new process enhanced the economic gender bias based on the perception that men earn while women have no contributions towards the monetary growth of the family. The industrial revolution, and the two great wars, radically altered the situation. Women were catapulted into mainstream workforce. They became substitute workforce at the industrial, agricultural and other production and service levels, including the armed services, and simultaneously continued their primary domestic work. Once the war ended most of the positions were given back to men. But women did not leave the mainstream workforce because the wars had considerably depleted the male population and caused economic recession. The situation forced women to take up the role of the primary bread earner, although their work was considered as supplementary income. Women and work, traditionally, culturally, regionally and historically, have remained inseparable -- women have always worked and continue to work, whether paid or unpaid. Yet, in almost every country, there exists blatant disparity in payments, working conditions and hours between men and women workforces. While women make up nearly 40 percent of the global paid workforce, they earn only 26 percent of the world's income as the bulk of their work remains in the unpaid sector and within the informal setting, excluding them from human resource development strategies. Linkages between paid and unpaid, formal and informal work are mostly vague although their impact is significant in terms of major changes in urban-rural migration patterns, changing family structures, efficiency in the export oriented manufacturing sector and on individuals themselves and their ability to sustain voluntary commitments. Hence "women and work" paradigm is layered with dynamics that are characteristically distinct from each other. But these are yet to be distinguished as essential features for lessening the challenges that women face in their respective positions and its overall economic impact on the public sector and human development index. Consequently, much of the labour done by women at the unpaid, informal and voluntary levels is lost in the economic activities and national accounts. This difference leads to lower entitlements to women than to men. Globally, the gender gap in wages is hard to determine due to lack of comprehensive data. In the industrial and services sectors, the gap ranges between 53 percent and 97 percent with an average of 78 percent. The differences in the work patterns of men and women and the "invisibility" of work that is not included in GNP lead to women's lower access to resources and opportunities, resulting in the lack of attention in macro-economic policy that adds to the inequity and perpetuates gender gaps. Market globalisation and export oriented economic growth has resulted in the decline of single earning household. The process necessitates the expansion of informal and supplementary sectors to meet the ever-increasing demand for labour intensive products. The wheel of fortune at this juncture comes full circle as women are considered cheap labour and are progressively found in pink-collar jobs because of their lack of skills, training and education, hence raising the job ghettos that exist in every country. The concept of "globalisation" is fundamentally based on economic expansion through breaking trade barriers. Today, it has developed into a global economic village and some Asian countries have created Export Processing Zones (EPZ) to house facilities that produce goods for export. Because of the nature of the work in most of these EPZs, for example, vegetable packers in Mexico, garment workers in China and Bangladesh, cotton harvesters in Egypt, women's nimble fingers are in high demand. Therefore, women make up much of the workforce in these areas and production zones. However, to attract foreign investors regulations and labour protection laws are either relaxed or not enforced for this sector, where the industries are characterised by low wages, long work hours, poor working conditions, lack of safety standards and barriers to workers' organisations, consequently affecting the women workers most. Economic globalisation looks for optimal benefits for the supplier and the consumer. But, as the buyers predominantly happens to be from the "developed" region, the process facilitates maximum benefit for them, which translates into cost cutting, the burden of which is transferred on to the supplier -- eventually impacting the women workforce. Economic globalisation has subjected women to the even harsher reality of coping with paid and unpaid work. Women work at a wide variety of occupations around the world as non-skilled and skilled labourers, professionals, self-employed and care givers. They make tremendous contributions to the economy through paid work. Most of the developing economies are at the threshold of massive emancipation yet progress is on hold, as women's unpaid work remains largely unrecognised in the GNP sector. Therefore, women's paid work is generally valued as less important than men's. Consequently, women find themselves in non-standard jobs. Reduction of public service in progressive economies and lack of it in developing countries affects women's unpaid work as they must continue in their care-giving roles and also improvise to feed their families when money becomes scarce. Paid and unpaid work is becoming more interwoven as the dominance of the breadwinner model gradually declines. Hence, socio-economic policy needs to take cognisance of this dimension to ensure that the unpaid work is taken into account. It imperative that all countries should articulate and substantively address the issues, factors and demands of women at work in all the relevant settings and sectors, be it paid or unpaid. Intra and inter government level policy changes are needed to comprehensively deal with the deteriorating situation of women workforce globally, especially in the context of worldwide economic downtrend. The abovementioned situation analysis makes us aware through visible evidence that there is every reason to count unpaid work as tangible GNP for only then can the socio-economic gender disparity be sufficiently and effectively addressed and "Equal Rights, Equal opportunities: Progress for all" move from rhetoric to result based action for change in the status quo.
Habiba Tasneem Chowdhury is Chief Coordinator, Institute of Hazrat Mohammad (SAW).
E-mail: tasneem@director.ihmsaw.org

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