Gender in economic sphere: Some key issues for developing countries

The issue of FLFPR has to be understood in terms of the availability, or not, of employment that gives visibility, dignity and fair remuneration for women

This year marks 30 years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) of the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women that laid out broad frameworks as well as concrete objectives for countries the world over to ensure greater equality and opportunities for women. This was a significant recognition of the gross inequalities and severe discrimination that women face the world over. Subsequently the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) laid out targets to be achieved with regard to gender equality. 

Even as such international policy frameworks and objectives for countries have rolled out, there have been repeated episodes and periods over which the conditions of women have deteriorated and they have borne the brunt of economic downturns and crises. In countries of the global south, the asymmetries in global power relations have resulted in adverse impacts of debt crises, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change on women’s abilities to participate in the labour force, and be accorded equal access, conditions and rights in the economy. At a policy level, while there is a recognition of the urgent need to address issues that affect women and their participation in the economy, there are different views on how this can be done and what interventions can substantially challenge the fundamental causes of gender inequality in the economy. 

Let us consider some key gender issues that emanate from economic conditions that are under discussion in regions of the global south, and South Asia and Sri Lanka in particular: Low Female Labour Force Participation Rates (FLFPR) and the need to enhance them; circumstances and conditions of paid and unpaid work by women; the gendered discourse on financial inclusion and the means to ‘include’ women within the financial system; the recognition of care work and the structure of the care economy. 

Female labour force participation rates

South Asia has historically had some of the lowest FLFPRs in the world, along with the MENA region. The FLFPR measures the percentage of women of working age (aged 15 years and above) who are either employed or actively seeking employment. While the global FLFPR stood at around 50% (compared to 80% for men), the average for South Asia was 31.6% in late 2023, which means that not even a third of women in the working age are officially considered to be employed. Within South Asia, Sri Lanka’s FLFPR has seen a fall, from more than 40% in 1998 to just about 30.09% in 2023. Both the low participation in the labour market, seen for South Asia in general, as well the withdrawal from the labour market, which seems to be the case with Sri Lanka compared to the late 1990s, are alarming and point to crucial processes involving the relationship between gender and work. 

For one, it points to meagre, and perhaps reduced opportunities for paid employment, the adverse burden of unpaid work as well as the conditions of both paid and unpaid work for women. It has been long pointed out by feminist economists that low statistical figures obscure the fact that women work, all the time, both as paid workers (when work is available and in whatever form it is available) and as unpaid workers in jobs and tasks that are not recognised as work, within the home and outside. Work done by women is characterised by invisibility (where many kinds of jobs done are not considered work at all), discrimination (in access to employment) and devaluation (poor remuneration and conditions of work). 

So when low FLFPRs are seen to be low, there are several things that that may have occurred: It could mean that unpaid work burdens, within the home and outside, are inordinately high or have increased, leaving women hardly any time or circumstances to seek out paid work. In countries that have faced the brunt of economic crisis, it has been seen that women’s care and other unpaid work burdens have increased drastically. Even if there are increases in FLFPR seen in particular periods (as has been observed marginally for Sri Lanka between 2022 and 2023 or for India, between 2019 and 2023), it need not signal an increase in the availability of paid work and/or a decline in the unpaid work burden on women. 

In fact, evidence from many parts of the world has shown that small ‘improvements’ in FLFPR, especially in periods of crisis, indicate a falling back on unpaid work, typically on family farms by women, due to distress. Further, even an expansion in paid work in such periods is likely to be of extremely poor quality, with low remuneration and poor conditions of work. The disproportionate number of women in informal employment, both poorly paid and unpaid, across the regions of the global south, is testimony to this.

Thus, while low or falling FLFPRs are seen to cause concern among policymakers in several parts of the developing world, merely increasing the FLFPR, no matter what the circumstances, could worsen the conditions of women or not indicate any improvement. The issue of FLFPR has to be understood in terms of the availability, or not, of employment that gives visibility, dignity and fair remuneration for women. 

Care economy

Another issue that is discussed extensively with regard to the economic conditions of women is ‘care’, which has become a buzzword in international circles, with the care economy and the need to pay attention to and nurture it being prioritised by governments increasingly as a means to support women and increase the possibilities of labour force participation by women. There has been the recognition of care as a ‘macro-critical issue’, even by international financial organisations such as the IMF, because of the adverse social impacts of several crises over the years. 

It is well documented that with the global COVID-19 crisis, debt crises in several parts of the global south (notably, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Ghana most recently) and climate emergencies, a ‘care crisis’ unfolded, consisting of the deficit in the availability of affordable care due to austerity and budget cuts and drastic increases in unpaid care work for women. While this has been documented, what is not acknowledged, let alone integrated into policy frameworks for the care economy, is the relationship between macroeconomic policies around debt restructuring, financial deregulation and the impacts on the care system. Thus, the issues that arise with regard to the care economy in Asia, Africa and the LAC region are specific, reflecting not only internal conditions and structures, but also international economic hierarchies and global policies and concomitant pressures on governments in these regions.

There are some important aspects that need to be pointed out with regard to what can constitute a progressive view of the care economy. These are not only about the recognition of the issue of care, but also basic gendering processes in the economy that aim to transform gender relations. 

Financial inclusion and PPPs

First, even if the importance of the care economy is recognised and the desire for redistributing the burden of care from unpaid women workers in families and communities expressed in policy frameworks, the modes of financing such efforts often are unsustainable and driven by profitability considerations of banks and other financial institutions. Where the state has financed the public provision of care, the levels of financing are either abysmally low or have fallen drastically. Even in the global discussions on financing for development, financing for social policies in general and care provision in particular is not part of mainstream discussions. 

For example, in several countries, there has been a move away from universal provision, fully financed by the State, to models that focus on investment by private or Public Private Partnership (PPP) actors, entrepreneurial initiatives of women’s self-help groups and other such models. This, in turn, derives from a larger argument regarding lack of access to financial services being the major deterrent to women participating in the economy, as self-employed workers or entrepreneurs. Women across the developing world, seen to be reliable with regard to loan repayments, have been targeted as recipients of microfinance in policies of ‘financial inclusion’ that is presented as an important plank of policies to increase FLFPRs. 

Extensive evidence exists which has pointed to the predatory nature of microfinance that has been made available to groups of poor women in countries of the global south and the impact this has had on burgeoning household debt burdens. Despite this, there is pressure on governments to go along with economic models for ‘gender empowerment’ and specifically, in the case being discussed here, for the care economy, that focus on self-employment, entrepreneurship, loans for enterprises and an important role for the private sector.  

Global chains of care

Second, the question of care in the global economy cannot be separated from the international division of labour and the global chains of care. The structure and conditions for women from the global south in global care chains and networks have been researched widely, but the distinct differences between the north and the south with regard to this and the implications for the conditions of families in developing countries, particularly the care deficit, do not get reflected in policy initiatives. It is the migration of women from countries of the south, as nurses, domestic workers, and the like that helps sustain the systems of care in the north, in turn deepening the care deficit in their home countries. The conditions of migration, the migrants and their families have to be integrated into domestic care policies in order to address this. 

Gendered labour markets

Third, the remuneration provided to care workers, who are mostly women, is low in most parts of the developing world, following norms of invisibilisation in gendered labour markets. Further, especially in times of severe crisis such as COVID and the post-COVID ecosystem, the altruistic dimension of gendered care has been exploited with care workers being glorified as ‘voluntary’ workers who get satisfaction from service to the community. This has been used to legitimise poor, sometimes no remuneration to them and several countries have seen the development of institutional mechanisms that depend on voluntarism and the attendant low remuneration for women workers. 

Gender inequalities

The challenges, as seen even from a brief perusal of some issues to do with women’s participation in the economy, are to what extent governments and policymakers seek to fundamentally address gender inequalities in the economy, rather that treat the adverse gender effects of macroeconomic policies and developments as external, or even marginal problems to be dealt with. Unless it is recognised that the structure of the economy is fundamentally shaped by the relationship between the spheres of production and social reproduction or between the paid and unpaid segments of the economy, which in turn are underpinned and dependent on gender relations, the discourse of ‘women’s empowerment’ can end up not improving the conditions of women in any significant manner. 

(The writer is a former Professor, Ambedkar University Delhi and presently Director, Gender and Economics, International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs).)