Female employment in Dhaka, Bangladesh: participation, perceptions and pressures
Nicola Banks
Brooks World Poverty Institute
The University of Manchester
07786911858
Abstract
As urbanisation changes the face of poverty in Bangladesh, endemic insecurities within the urban environment force low-income households to deploy new strategies of labour mobilisation that challenge traditional patriarchal ideologies, and in the process, gender dynamics.The research reveals the complex balance male household heads face in meeting economic and social priorities. While the majority of households depend on female labour mobilisation as a short term means of survival, this comes at the cost of displacing longer-term goals of household advancement given that status, prestige and social networks are dependent on the ability to uphold patriarchal norms forbidding women from work. While most men hold on to patriarchal beliefs – viewing the mobilisation of female labour as a ‘necessary evil’ dampening household honour and prestige and threatening masculinity – women are aware of the importance of their work and the centrality of their contributions to income. These opposing perspectives generate tensions within the household, leaving women to face a complex balance between managing the household, their jobs and the marital relationship.A wife’s labour is often viewed as a threat to male dominance and authority and followed by several negative behaviours of the household head, including reducing working hours and income contributions or taking a second wife.A paradox is visible, in which men are aware of these negative tendencies, but do not associate this with their own marital problems, instead blaming wives for their ‘disobedience’. This maybe one reason for the persistence of patriarchal social norms that frown upon sending married women to work at the same time it has become widely acceptable to send young, unmarried daughters, who do not offer the same challenge to authority, to work in Bangladesh’s thriving export-oriented garments sector.
1.Introduction
While urbanisation offers greater access to employment opportunities, lower fertility rates and increased independence for women, a gendered perspective of urban poverty highlights the significance of non-income poverty – such as time poverty arising from their multiple responsibilities and emotional distress – and highlights fundamental issues of equality and social justice given their unequal position in the labour market, their limited ability to secure assets and independence from male relatives, and their exposure to domestic violence.[1]Given their deep-rooting in socially entrenched gender roles and social norms, gender disparities persist in ‘sticky’ domains of health disadvantages in morbidity, mortality and malnutrition among women and girls, and in economic realms of income differentials, gaps in asset ownership, segregation in economic activities, and male-female responsibilities in household management and care work.[2]
The analysis here draws upon research in four Dhaka busteesfrom September 2008 to July 2009.[3]Focusing primarily on the role of employment in household mobility, the research consisted of 22 male and female focus group discussions, community surveys covering around 100 households in each community, and 77 in-depth interviews to compare employment experiences across ‘coping’ and ‘improving’ households.[4]With its central focus on the influence of employment on household mobility, interviews were conducted with the household head, who in all but one case were men.Their perspective on female employment is critical given their role in the trajectories of women’s empowerment,[5] but this means there is less data to draw upon for analysing female perceptions of household labour mobilisation strategies. Focus groups and background interviews, however, give sufficient depth of information to contrast, contextualise and complement male perceptions.
The landscape of female employment changed markedly throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with the rise of Bangladesh’s export-oriented ready-made garments industrygenerating a tremendous expansion in opportunities for female employment in urban areas. In 2003, an estimated 3,600 garment factories employed 1.8 million workers, 80 to 90 percent of whom were female.[6]We must analyseinfluences on female labour mobilisation within the broader household environment. Section 2 explores the endemic insecurity faced by low-income urban households in Dhaka before Section 3 looks at the increasing use of female labour mobilisation as a coping strategy and the tensions this creates for household heads trying to balance economic and social needs. Section 4 then investigates its repercussions on women’s lives and relationships in the household.
2.Living with endemic insecurity: income deficits, loan-seeking and labour mobilisation strategies
Low-income urban households in Bangladesh secure their livelihoods in a context of scarce resources and hostile conditions, facing opportunities and obstacles to household improvement that are shaped by social, economic, and political institutions and processes.[7]The most immediate challenge they face is the search for income security.The high costs of living combined with low and irregular incomes, means that households can rarely survive on one income.
Across the four research sites, 420 households were asked how their household was in comparison with five years ago, using a subjective measure of well-being.[8] The majority of households – 43 percent – reported their households as worse than they had been five years ago, and a further one in three indicated their household was in the same position.That opportunities for household mobility are constrained to 23 percent of householdsis indicative of the persistent economic vulnerabilities that act as a central constraint on urban livelihoods and opportunities for mobility. Low-income urban households in Dhaka are not earning enough, nor regularly enough to balance their incomes and expenditures amidst the high costs of urban living, particularly given the price increases that had occurred in the year leading up to the research.
A dependence on cash incomes means that money– and therefore employment – is at the heart of strategies for household survival and improvement.[9] Labour market experiences for low-income workers are characterised by both structural and agency-related obstacles, with low skills levels, qualifications and experienceweaved into broader structural constraints ofoversaturated markets, low wage rates, work irregularity and the mediation of the labour market by social relationships.[10]This leaves themajority of households to secure their livelihoods supported by informal, insecure, low-paidand irregular work in the three main employment categories, unskilled labour, small business and formal sector/skilled work. Reliance ona sole income under these terms of employment leaves little opportunity for household mobility.[11] Urban livelihoods in Bangladesh can be distinguished by these occupational categories in terms of stability, security and prospects for mobility (Figure 1).[12]Although the dominant employer of the urban poor,unskilled labour offers little potential for household mobility and the greatest likelihood of household deterioration.Formal sector jobs viewed most prestigiously are those that increase a household’s potential for mobility.
Figure 1. Self-reported mobility status by employment category[13]
The monetisation of the urban economy, therefore, poses a significant threat to low-income households, who mustdevise multiple strategies of labour mobilisation and manage complex financial portfolios to meet striking income deficits. Nearly three-quarters of all households have at least one loan or debt in their financial portfolio, illustrating the pressing need for alternative means of bridging the gap between household incomes and expenditures.[14] Coping with budget deficits is a situation commonly referred to as tanatani, highlighting the financial tug-of-war of incomes and expenditures pulling constantly in opposite directions. One in five households have large monthly income deficits between 2000 and 5000 taka,[15] and a further25 percent have a deficit between 500and 2000 taka (Figure 2). Small budget surpluses and deficits easily fluctuate in either direction if a household has additional expenditures (such as health costs) or have earned a higher income (e.g. through more regular work) in any given month. Health expenditures place a further burden on budgets, with three-quarters of households reporting monthly health expenditures averaging 863 BDT. Only one in three households have a monthly income surplus sufficient to manage these costs without going (further) into deficit, highlighting how poorly equipped busteehouseholds are to cope with additional income pressures.
Figure 2.Size of household budget surplus and deficit (in Bangladesh taka)*
*Figures in Bangladesh Taka. These include monthly expenditures for food, rent, electricity, water and firewood, but exclude spending on education and health care.[16]
Labour mobilisation strategies serve dual purposes, to smoothconsumption and promote household security and to builda platform for household mobility.In this context of severe financial instability, however, they serve primarily former goals of income stability and consumption-smoothing. This means that for the majority of households, meeting immediate economic needs dominates in decision-making on labour mobilisation strategies, taking precedence over patriarchal norms that forbid women’s employment. Increases in female employment do not mean that patriarchal ideologies have become diluted, however, and their persistence results in significant divergence between male and female perceptions on female employment.As the following sections discuss, broad agreement on the need to mobilise female labour for household security is accompanied by two concerns. For men, this is the trade-off between economic needs and social status, while for women, concerns focus on the negative behaviours this promotes in some husbands.Women face a complex balance between maintaining their household, employment and marital relationships, and men remain unwilling to accept additional challenges to their authority.
3.Balancing financial needs and social status: male perceptions of female employment
As we have seen, male household heads control decision-making regarding female labour mobilisation, balancing competing economic and social priorities. While the daily pressures of income scarcity amidst the high costs of urban living means that additional sources of income are a necessity, the mobilisation of female labour comes at a heavy cost, being a threat both to the self-image of the household head as the main provider, and to their household’s status and honour.[17] This means that the need to prioritise economic needs leads to the long-term sacrifice of the social networks most conducive to long-term prospects for household mobility. In the following two sections we explore the perceptions and decision-making processes of two different groups of household heads, those who mobilise female employment out of economic necessity, and another (much smaller) group who choose not to, given the sacrifice this entails in terms of status and prestige.
a.Female employment: from a necessary evil to a strategy for advancement
Endemic insecurity has led to an environment in which patriarchal ideologies are forced to take a back seat. This is a view expressed both by men and women in different ways. As one woman explained, “The mindset has changed about whether a woman can work. Now there is no man that does not want his wife to work!” Male focus groups estimated that only between 5 to 10 percent of women are housewives, but were far from viewing this as an indisputable good. Traditional patriarchal beliefs and gender norms remain, with household heads viewing female employment largely as a necessary evil crucial for survival in the city. As one focus group respondent argued, “It is not a matter of good or bad that a woman works. If my household needs it, my wife will work”, highlighting that only when female employment is necessary to survival will it be condoned. Another one male focus group explained the situation as, “For poverty, our habits are going bad’, highlighting that female employment symbolises not so much a choice for households, but a lack of choice.
With a sole income-earner rarely able to promote household stability, let alone mobility,[18]just under60 percent of households send female members to work, who make a significant contribution to household’s income (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Female contributions to household income: Male-headed tenant households*
* This includes only households where female labour is employed (n=133) Female-headed households and landlords are excluded from analysis to avoid overestimation and underestimation of female contributions, respectively.[19]
The deployment of female labour as a response to insecurity is evident when one breaks down rates of female employment across various categories, including the household head’s employment category, household income, and vulnerability to income shocks. For unskilled labourers facing low wages and work irregularity, female labour rates increase to around 65 percent of households. If a household head is unemployed, this increases to nearly 70 percent. Insecurity also distinguishes between rates of female employment across communities. Households in one community had recently moved there after being evicted from their previous homes, and in this community, problems of gambling and drug addiction further increased financial pressures on many households.Rates of female employment were high here at 64 percent of households.
This relationship is also evident when looking at female employment by household income, with relatively wealthier households much less likely to send women to work. Only around 40 percent of households earning over 10,000 BDT a month mobilise female employment, in comparison with 50 and 70 percent of households earning below 5,000 taka and between 5,000 to 10,000 taka, respectively.[20] This may indicate that the poorest households are in this position because they cannot mobilise further incomes through female employment. Of the households who did not mobilise their wife’s labour in lower-income brackets, many interviews made clear that this was due to their inability rather than anunwillingness to do so.Frequent disruptions to female labour due to life cycle changes such as pregnancy, childcare, or when daughters are sent for marriage –act as a further constraint on the ability of households to use female labour mobilisation as a strategy for advancement.[21]
These constraints help to identify why female labour mobilisation is so rarely able to facilitate household improvements.[22] Indeed, nearly half of households mobilising income from wives report that their household is worse than five years ago, and a further 30 percent as “the same”. That only one in four household heads reporting household improvements have mobilised their wife’s labour suggests that it is not female income contributions that have played the primary role in their household’s strategy for getting ahead. Instead, as the next section discusses, we see that it is a household’s social networks that play the strongest role in advancing household interests over time. For households that prioritise protecting and extending social networks, this entails a different rationale to labour mobilisation strategies. In the political economy of busteesin Dhaka, honour and prestige is more important an asset than short-term financial gains.This means, however, that the majority of low-income urban households in Dhaka areforced to prioritise the short-term economic returns of female labour for their survival, are in the process excluding themselves from the potential for longer-term economic returns and mobility.
b.Female employment strategies as a barrier to long-term mobility prospects
In urban Bangladesh, the extent of a household’s social connections has important implications for its opportunities for mobility.[23]Social networksfor most householdsare limited to reciprocal networks that may assist in survival and coping with emergencies, but cannot enhance prospects for mobility. Relatives, neighbours, employers or moneylenders offer some forms of assistance to help smooth consumption, but given their similarly insecure livelihoods or their exploitative terms,offer few pathways to future improvements. A much smaller proportion of households have the right kinds of social networks necessary for advancing a household’s interests and economic status, in the form of social networks that link a household to busteeleadership figures and institutions. Theseconnections provide access to the information, jobs, resources and other benefits that have the greatest long-run potential for expanding opportunities for household mobility. It is within this context that research in Dhaka and Chittagong has revealed that men link poverty not only to a lack of jobs, but also to poor networking and a loss of social prestige.[24]
We see, therefore, that after a household has passed first level goals of income stability, strategic decision-making shifts from household survival to strategies that aim to build a platform for mobility.[25] Conforming to patriarchal ideologies is one important dimension to securing the respect necessary for accessing and protecting the social networks through which households can access information, resources, and opportunities. As one household head explained, ‘It is not a question of her financial assistance, it is a question of honour. People will ask me why my wife is working, so I will not allow this’. The non-economic costs of female employment in terms of lost status and respect mean that for some, upholding patriarchal ideologies takes priority overpotential lost income in rationalising labour mobilisation strategies. This decision, however, can only be made by those who already meet their survival needs through other forms of income. For households lacking alternative sources of income – such as room rental or large multiple male workers in the household – this strategy acts as an additional constraint on household survival.
The importance of maintaining prestige through labour mobilisation is evident in several spheres. Firstly, female employment is less prevalent in households headed by small businessmen or formal sector workers, who hold more ‘prestigious’ jobs. In comparison with around 65 percent of households headed by unskilled labourers, only around half of small businessmen or formal sector workers mobilise female labour (Figure 4). This differentiation becomes even sharper when looking at the breakdown of female employment withinthe household. While around 55 percent of unskilled labourers mobilise their wives’ labour, this drops to around 35 and 25 in these two more prestigious jobs, respectively. In-depth interviews with household heads across these three employment categoriesalso reveal that patriarchal ideologies are more common among small businessmen and formal sector workers when household heads discuss their labour mobilisation strategies.[26]