Despite major strides, Bangladeshi women lag in socio-economic and agency development

Illustration: TBS

Over the years, women of Bangladesh have made impressive progress in socio-economic development. Between 2000 and 2020, the female life expectancy at birth in Bangladesh has increased by nine years– from 66 years in 2000 to 75 years in 2020. In comparison, the gain by men during this period has been five years – from 66 years in 2000 to 71 years in 2020. 

The expected years of schooling of Bangladeshi girls during this period has improved from seven years to 12 years.  In fact, the expected years of schooling by women at 12 years were better than that of men at 11 years.  Women in Bangladesh have improved their mean years of schooling from four to six years between 2000 and 2020. 

The Gender Development Index (GDI), a composite index of women's human development has increased from 0.400 in 2000 to 0.596 in 2020 – by about 50%.  

The labour force participation of women is often treated as a proxy indicator of women's economic empowerment.  The labour force participation rate of women in Bangladesh has steadily increased from 24% in 2000 to 36% in 2017. 

The number of working women increased from 16 million in 2020 to nearly 19 million in 2017. In terms of the Gender Gap Index, among the 146 countries included in the index, Bangladesh has secured its position at 41st in 2022 from 47th in 2017. 

Countries like India and Pakistan are positioned at 135th and 145th respectively. Almost half of the working women in Bangladesh pursue unskilled and semi-skilled jobs in the agriculture, fisheries, and livestock sectors. 

Only one-third of them are unpaid instead of the 70% two decades ago. The wage gap between women and men has been reduced significantly in recent years – the male wage is only 2.2% higher than that of women.

In Bangladesh, the female literacy rate has reached 71% – as opposed to 65% in India, 60% in Nepal and 47% in Pakistan. The female gross enrolment rate at the primary level has reached 125% in 2018 and the net secondary enrolment rate at 72%. 

Female students of tertiary education in Bangladesh increased from 19% in 1985 to 41% in 2014, growing at an average annual rate of six%. 

In 2020, the ratio of female to male students in tertiary education was approximately 77 female students for 100 male students. The%age of women (25 years and older) with at least some secondary education has increased from 22% in 2000 to 40% in 2020. 
  
The maternal mortality rate in Bangladesh has declined from 434 per 100,000 live births in 2000 to 173 per 100,000 in 2017. 

Between 2000 and 2020, the adolescent birth rate (15-19 years) in Bangladesh has declined from 123 per 1,000 women to 83 per 1,000 women. The under-five mortality rate among girls has decreased from 244 per 1,000 live births in 1971 to 27 per 1,000 live births. 

In 2021, 21% of national parliament members in Bangladesh were women. Representation of women in local bodies has also been increasing. Women have increasingly been ensuring that their voices are heard at different levels of the society. 

Women groups have steadily been taking part in policy dialogues on national priorities, on issues that are of concern to them. They have been raising their voices whenever something goes wrong at the societal level. They have been fighting for communal harmony, women's rights and security, social issues like early marriage, and Bangladeshi female workers' rights abroad. 

Their movements on the wellbeing of sex workers, securing rights and security of the third gender have made a difference.  In Bangladesh, the fertility rate of women (15-49 years) has come down from nearly five in 1990 to slightly higher than two in 2018. This reflects the autonomy of women on their reproductive decisions. 

Despite the country's significant progress and the strides that Bangladeshi women have made over the years, when it comes to their agency and socio-economic development – significant disempowerment, structural, and social barriers remain. 

Women in Bangladesh are still disempowered on many fronts – economic, political, social, and cultural. There are several factors that are responsible for this. Broadly speaking, these factors are economic such as, economic dependency on men, ownership of land, limited scope for employment. 

Some are socio-cultural and religious, such as illiteracy, socially ignored cultural apathy, intra-household discriminations, pardah or seclusion; and some are political, such as indifference to political parties and limited participation in electoral politics.  

Economic empowerment of women is critical for their agency as well as for their socio-economic development. In Bangladesh, only 14% of the working-age women (aged 15-65) are in active employment and are earning. 

A little less than 10% Bangladeshi women hold managerial positions, while the comparable numbers for men are 88%. Furthermore, about 92% of employed women work in the informal sector with high gender wage gaps and lack of benefits. 

Although the female entrepreneurship rate has been growing – women make up only seven% of the seven million entrepreneurs in the country, and women-led businesses continue to be small.  Only 15% of Bangladeshi firms have women as owners or co-owners. 

Women are concentrated in low-paying, low productive agricultural activities, and also in unpaid work. About 30% of employed women are involved in unpaid work. With regard to unpaid domestic and care work, women spend 25.8% of their time while men only spend five%. These may adversely affect women's economic decision-making ability and their ability to contribute to economic empowerment. 

Several factors are critical to women's economic empowerment. There are direct factors, such as education, skills development and training, access to quality, decent and paid work, addressing unpaid care and work burdens. Access to property, assets and financial services, collective action and leadership, and social protection also play a crucial role.

There are also underlying factors such as labour market characteristics, fiscal policy, legal, regulatory and policy framework, gender norms, and discriminatory social norms. Women also lack control over their income. 

Patriarchy remains the major driver of social disempowerment of the Bangladeshi women. It basically controls their life and aspirations – setting parameters of what they can do and be.  

Patriarchy has economic as well as political implications, which become visible in different ways. The majority of Bangladeshi women — regardless of where they live and what their employment status is — say that they hand over most of their earnings to their husbands or other family members. 
Women in Bangladesh have less access to finance as men do not allow them to be involved in finance. Only 36% of Bangladeshi women have bank accounts. Patriarchy also often does not allow women to have a voice or political agency. 

On many occasions, the man of the house instructs the women on whom to vote for during election time. Women are also discriminated against in their family life.  In Bangladesh, patriarchy makes sure that marriage, divorce, custody of children, maintenance and inheritance are determined by men. 

These personal laws often discriminate against women. In short, the realities of the lives of women in Bangladesh are determined by the actions of men.

Early marriage continues to be an impediment to women's socio-economic empowerment. Currently, almost 60% of adolescent girls are married before the legal age of 18. 

Despite efforts by the government and non-governmental organisations to reduce the rate of child marriage in Bangladesh, it remains the highest in South Asia at 59% of girls getting married before the age of 18. 

Bangladesh has the highest adolescent fertility rates in South Asia as 28% of women aged 15-19 years have begun childbearing. Early marriage limits the capabilities and reduces the opportunities of Bangladeshi women. Marriage is also the most common reason why girls drop out of school. 

Lack of human security of women is a major dimension of social disempowerment of Bangladeshi women. Domestic violence is a serious threat to them. The rates of violence against women remain high. 

Almost two out of three (73%) ever-married women in Bangladesh have experienced some form of partner violence in their lifetime, and more than half (55%) have experienced it in the last 12 months. 

The incidence of domestic violence seems to have risen Covid-19 shut down. Sexual harassment, acid attacks and suicide are also issues related to their safety and security.  

In Bangladesh, two groups of women face severe forms of social disempowerment. One such group is sex workers and the other includes Bangladeshi female migrant workers, particularly in the Middle-] East.  

Commercial sexual exploitation is socially and personally disempowering. Sex work operators (e.g., traffickers, men, madams, house owners) have forced girls and women into sex work by putting them in a situation where they felt limited power. 
Various economic and sociocultural factors – ranging from poverty to the feeling of disempowerment – shaped their voluntary engagement in sex work, by creating a condition of victimhood in which women felt limited agency and obligated to work for madams as bonded sex workers.

Female migrant workers face the same fate. Once they are at the workplace in the Middle East, all their rights are violated and all their wellbeing are at stake. 

Often their passports are taken away, their working hours are 16-18 hours, and they are given little food. They are not allowed to go outside the house and there are no holidays. They sometimes face sexual exploitation, rape, physical torture and even death. Their wellbeing, agency and rights are shattered. 

Political disempowerment of Bangladeshi women has its roots in social and cultural norms, set by the patriarchy. Women are not traditionally expected to have active interests in politics, to be part of political movements, or to have political views.

They are not expected to have some kind of voice and autonomy, particularly in rural areas, to choose candidates during election times and vote for their preferred candidate. Men make these kinds of political decisions for them. Women seldom belong to political parties, and run for seats at different levels of representation. 

In short, the political space for women to have their voice, autonomy and participation is quite limited. This is rather unfortunate, because in the liberation war of Bangladesh, women took part side by side with men. 

But later on, when the country became independent, women were marginalised in the political space. But political empowerment of women is essential for their agency freedom and their socio-economic development. 

Sketch: TBS

Dr Selim Jahan is the former Director of the Human Development Report Office (HDRO) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in New York . 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.