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Factors facilitating access by women to economic and social life and higher qualifications in the framework of national, regional and global development context
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0.Background3
1.The status of women in Mediterranean Partner Countries4
1.1Economic participation6
1.2Social and political participation11
1.3Conditions for the human development of women in the MPCs13
1.4Promoting capabilities 20
2.Framework factors24
2.1Patchy welfare provisions24
2.2Social services and infrastructure27
2.3Women and migration28
3.Women in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and the ENP30
3.1Regional partnership programmes31
3.2Promoting the position of women through the ENP32
3.3 Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean 34
4.Conclusions and proposals 36
4.1Setting integrated capabilities agendas 36
4.1.1 An integrated agenda for rights, activities and structures36
4.1.2An integrated agenda for freeing up women's time37
4.1.3An integrated agenda for labour, economic activities and resources37
4.1.4An integrated agenda for positive actions38
5.Essential bibliography40
* * * * * *
Tables
Table 1 – Female/male activity and employment rate per sector 7
Table 2 – Informal employment as a % of non-rural work
(non-OEDC-countries) 8
Table 3 - Evolution of the fertility rates (number of births per woman) 10
Table 4 - Political participation in the EU and the MPCs 12
Table 5 – Life expectancy and childbirth mortality 14
Table 6 – Education and wage expectations 16
Table 7 – Income, growth and inflation 18
Table 8 - Social expenditure: health and education 25
Table 6 – Projects funded under the Enhancing Opportunities of Women
in Economic Life programme (EOWEL)31
0.Background
The Summit of the Euro-Mediterranean Economic and Social Councils and similar organizations held in Ljubljana in November 2006 decided to draft a report on “Factors facilitating access by women to economic and social life and higher qualifications in the framework of national, regional and global development context” to be submitted to the Social and Economic Summit scheduled for 2008. The working group was composed of the Italian Economy and Labour Council (Consiglio Nazionale dell’Economia e del Lavoro - CNEL - which will also ensure the drafting of the report), the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), the Economic and Social Councils of France, Tunisia, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Algeria, Luxembourg and Spain, as well as the Turkish delegation of the joint EU-Turkish Consultative Committee. A first interim report was discussed at the Athens Summit in 2007.
This document aims at providing its own contribution and – where possible – enriching the debate and the initiatives which have been taken in the framework of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation - particularly at the first Euro-Mediterranean Interministerial Conference held in Istanbul on gender issues and equal opportunities – by mainly focusing on the position of women in the Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPC) recognised as EU partners under the Barcelona Strategy and the recent development in external relations known as the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) such as the Union for the Mediterranean. The conceptual reference framework is also the platform defined by the UN's Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a UN initiative set up to eradicate poverty and promote people-centred development. After Beijing, whose guiding methodology is to "look at the world through the eyes of women", words such as "mainstreaming" and "empowerment" entered the everyday language to describe, respectively, the need to integrate gender considerations into all policies, and the objective of meeting women's demands to participate fully in all types of development (economic, social, political, environmental etc.) and assume the formal responsibilities that this participation brings with it. Moreover, the third and fifth MDGs refer specifically to gender equality and the empowerment of women and the improvement of maternal health. These international initiatives, backed up by a wealth of statistics from UN agencies and programmes, have resulted in a set of cross-sectoral objectives that are equally applicable to developed and developing countries. Among these objectives, the integration of women in the labour market, economic life, political management and community life are priorities that no country can eschew.
The fact that the first “Interministerial Conference on women in partnership” held in Istanbul in October 2006 defined a five-year common program hinged around 16 far-reaching goals to foster equal opportunities and women’s participation – on an equal footing – in the economic, labour, political and cultural sectors shows that the Euro-mediterranean cooperation has realized that there is the urgent need to place women at the core of development processes and that the EU and MPC institutions are aware of the need to involve the civil society’s organizations, which are called upon to contributing to the success of the decision jointly taken, by taking the lead in pursuing said goals by means of a steady cooperative work.
This report draws and builds on the choices made in Istanbul and, while providing thematic and methodological indications in a constructive spirit, it seeks to provide concrete contributions to the implementation of the program, trends and developments stemming from Istanbul, which are to be placed in the framework of the Euromed Partnership and the EU Neighbourhood Policy.
In the first part of this document we will try to refer to the real situation in which women live, by discussing – on the basis of data and analyses by international agencies and institutions– some factors which positively or negatively affect women’s life in the MPC region. In particular, an attempt will be made to focus on the need to promote not only capabilities and skills, but also – and especially – women’s capabilities, as a prerequisite conducive to genuine equal opportunities.
In the second part of this document an analysis will be made on women’s conditions in relation to the great evolutionary trends of our society (population trends, welfare conditions, mobility and migrations), whereas the third part will focus on the Euro-Mediterranean policies and the programs which stemmed from Istanbul.
Finally, we will seek to define a series of criteria to be applied to the cooperation and exchange initiatives and programs envisaged by the Euro-Mediterranean policies in general, but also to be taken into account in the definition and implementation of policies designed to rise up to the challenge of gender equality at national, regional and global levels.
Comparisons between the situations and experiences of women in Europe and MPCs will only be made when it is logical to do so in order to assess, for example, the rate at which human, social and economic parameters are evolving in the two regions. In its report on "Competitiveness and social cohesion as factors in building an integrated Euro-Mediterranean area", presented at the Athens conference in October 2007, the Spanish ESC has already made a valuable contribution towards collating and systematizing information. Readers are invited to consult this invaluable document and its appended tables for all economic and social framework data.
The present study seeks to use available disaggregated data to the best possible effect, supplementing them, where necessary, with references to experiences that appear relevant.
1.The status of women in Mediterranean Partner Countries
The EU institutional interest in the status of women in MPCs and the Arab world in general has grown significantly during the last decade. Social partner organisations and socio-occupational organisations have – since before the inception of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in Barcelona in 1995 – taken part in field research and the implementation of network cooperation projects on understanding the overall position of women in the area and supporting its improvement. The reasons for this attention are diverse and, consequently, we will concentrate on the three reasons most frequently referred to in the relevant literature.
The first reason concerns the fact that, despite reasonable economic growth rates in MPCs over the last five years, economic growth remains far below the region's real potential. This leads analysts and politicians to see women as a "reserve" of human capital that might well prove decisive in launching stronger and more stable economic growth in the area.
The second reason lies in an emerging female subjectivity in MPCs whereby women, as individuals and also and especially as organisations (groups, collectives, cooperatives and networks of female entrepreneurs), are carving out spaces and opportunities for themselves at home and at work, as well as in business and societal and political life. The efforts made by women in a variety of situations give rise to tension, conflict and violence and come up against some rigid religious ideologies and attitudes that impact on the human[1], social and economic development of women themselves, their rights, and ultimately (although maybe this should be our starting point) their aspirations.
The third reason concerns the direct experience common to the entire Euro-Mediterranean area of migration flows (which at first primarily involved men, but now increasingly involve women), which have altered – in objective and subjective terms – the position of women, irrespective of whether they remain in their countries, travel to rejoin their spouses, or emigrate alone to find work or to escape the hindrance or outright violation of their human rights.
The interconnections between these causes must be maintained if we are to establish an analytical base to support efforts to improve the overall status of women. However, at the same time, these interconnections almost invariably create further difficulties when it comes to implementing women's emancipation and empowerment projects in the various spheres (family, school, work, business, politics, etc.).
Let us, for instance, take a look at the difficulties involved in integrating women in the labour market. Despite extremely strong growth in the female participation rate in MPCs, which rose by 19% between 1990 and 2003 (compared to an overall increase of 3% in the rest of the world), MPCs have the lowest (registered) female labour market participation rates in the world: women make up approximately 30% of the working population[2]. If we seek to tackle this problem by relying exclusively on "traditional" – albeit necessary - solutions such as increasing access to education and vocational training, we come up against the fact that MPCs are already experiencing a substantial quantitative and qualitative increase in female enrolment rates[3] and that this has not translated into a corresponding increase in the participation of women in the labour market. Needless to say, this average figure on education and training conceals a picture in which there are both areas of excellence and pockets of serious backwardness.
A further example: if the need to promote women's rights leads us to campaign for formal and unilateral legislation without also introducing the necessary implementation and monitoring tools - by involving the people concerned, namely women - to impact appropriately on a situation characterised by extremely diverse structures, environments, cultures, societies and development rates, we will end up by reducing these rights to the formal aspect of written law, which is not always capable of satisfying the need to promote real gender equality.
For this reason, this study bases its working hypothesis on the need for different worlds to live side by side, and the possibility that they might come into conflict with each other, because it is only by asserting and accepting these sometimes anomalous contradictions and tendencies that we can identify the right priority actions, and thus the most effective ways of overcoming continuing resistance to the full realisation of women's abilities and potential. In practical terms, we will use available disaggregated data by gender, but will also interpret them flexibly in the light of experience-based qualitative and quantitative information.
In this complex framework, the attention of institutions, foundations, researchers, the social partners, socio-occupational organisations and political parties provides a body of experience, theories and trial actions that enable us to extrapolate evaluation criteria and, where appropriate, fine-tune what has already been carried out. This can be very useful for giving some order and concreteness, however partial, to the ongoing debate. This study and the agenda it puts forward will adopt an approach that is as cross-sectoral as possible, in order to avoid reproducing stereotypes or formulating static or abstract objectives.
1.1Economic participation
Considering that economic participation refers both to employment, self-employment, entrepreneurial activities and any other kind of activity designed to produce goods and services, we shall not forget that only an economic context characterized by dynamic and sustainable development can offer real and stable opportunities for participation. The development of MPCs – but, partially, also the development of European countries – falls short of the region potential owing to a general lack, inter alia, of foreign direct investment (FDI): The response to the need to attract FDI cannot and shall not be the promotion of generalized deregulation, but rather a shared EU and MPC choice to aim at integrated development, based on the knowledge and sharing of economic and social quality goals, so that infrastructure and human resources can become an asset to win the challenges of the globalized world.
With reference to the current situation of women’s participation in MPCs, a first distinction needs to be made: living and working conditions, as well as empowerment, vary considerably in urban and rural areas. A second distinction must also always be borne in mind, between formal labour, informal labour and labour that is not even recognised. Whereas in urban areas, the issue of equality is becoming increasingly apparent (especially with regard to contractual conditions and pay), in rural areas the work of women is virtually invisible since it takes place in the informal labour market and the family. This has a variety of consequences because the infrastructural, cultural and social frameworks of the two contexts are quite different. Women's work in the urban economy is immediately identifiable as it generates income and, hence, social and national wealth. This gives women's activities intrinsic value even though their wages are lower than the wages of men performing the same job and are then entirely absorbed into their family's economy, where they are often managed by the (male) head of the family. By contrast, rural labour (be it formal or informal, recognised or not) is carried out for the main purpose of supporting the family. As such, it is more subject to social and cultural conditioning and its qualitative development is slower and does little to foster the autonomy of women. In the debate generated by the Beijing conference, one demand remains pending and has yet to be structured: unrecognised work and so-called "family care work", which often includes family farm work, are entirely excluded from data, and should be factored into GDP figures. This means devising instruments for identifying and quantifying this type of work. A minute analysis of the links between women and productive activity is set out in the 2006 Femise Report[4], which also broaches the issue of how to evaluate women's overall contribution to development by creating econometric instruments for considering the various types of activities (both formal and informal ones). The difficulties involved in gathering statistics even for formal labour, make the idea of creating instruments for analysing informal and unrecognised labour seem impossible. Nevertheless, it is a social and political priority we should all support. The 2007-2008 Human Development Report (hereinafter referred to as HDR) provides a table on unemployment and employment in the informal sector, by underlining the great difficulties incurred in finding reliable data: it is, however, a further effort made by the UNDP to delve into this issue.
Table 1 – Female/male activity and (formal) employment rates by sectors
Activity rate / AgricultureEmployed / Industry
Employed / Tertiary sector
Employed
Women / Women as a %of men / Women
% / Men
% / Women
% / Men
% / Women
% / Men
%
(2005) / 1995/2005average / 1995/2005average / 1995/2005average
Algeria / 35.7 / 45 / 22 / 20 / 28 / 26 / 49 / 54
Austria / 49.5 / 76 / 6 / 6 / 13 / 40 / 81 / 55
Belgium / 43.7 / 73 / 1 / 3 / 11 / 35 / 82 / 62
Bulgaria / 41.2 / 78 / 7 / 11 / 29 / 39 / 64 / 50
Cyprus / 53 / 76 / 4 / 6 / 11 / 34 / 85 / 59
Denmark / 59.3 / 84 / 2 / 4 / 12 / 34 / 86 / 62
Egypt / 20.1 / 27 / 39 / 28 / 6 / 23 / 55 / 49
Estonia / 52.3 / 80 / 4 / 7 / 24 / 44 / 72 / 49
Finland / 56.9 / 86 / 3 / 7 / 12 / 38 / 84 / 56
France / 48.2 / 79 / 3 / 5 / 12 / 35 / 84 / 60
Germany / 50.8 / 77 / 2 / 3 / 16 / 41 / 82 / 56
Jordan / 27.5 / 36 / 2 / 4 / 13 / 23 / 83 / 73
Greece / 43.5 / 67 / 14 / 12 / 10 / 30 / 76 / 58
Ireland / 53.2 / 74 / 1 / 9 / 12 / 39 / 86 / 51
Italy / 37.4 / 62 / 3 / 5 / 18 / 39 / 79 / 56
Israel / 50.1 / 85 / 1 / 3 / 11 / 32 / 88 / 64
Latvia / 49 / 77 / 8 / 15 / 16 / 35 / 75 / 49
Lebanon / 32.4 / 41 / … / … / … / … / … / …
Libya / 32.1 / 40 / … / … / … / … / … / …
Lithuania / 51.7 / 82 / 11 / 17 / 21 / 37 / 68 / 46
Luxembourg / 44.6 / 69 / 3 / 3 / 8 / 42 / 89 / 55
Malta / 34 / 49 / 1 / 2 / 18 / 34 / 81 / 63
Morocco / 26.8 / 33 / 57 / 39 / 19 / 21 / 25 / 40
The Netherlands / 56.2 / 77 / 2 / 4 / 8 / 30 / 86 / 62
Poland / 47.4 / 78 / 17 / 18 / 17 / 39 / 66 / 43
Portugal / 55.7 / 79 / 13 / 12 / 21 / 42 / 66 / 46
United Kingdom / 55.2 / 80 / 1 / 2 / 9 / 33 / 90 / 65
Czech Republic / 51.9 / 77 / 3 / 5 / 27 / 49 / 71 / 46
Romania / 50.1 / 80 / 33 / 31 / 25 / 35 / 42 / 34
Syria / 38.6 / 44.0 / 58 / 24 / 7 / 31 / 35 / 45
Slovakia / 51.8 / 76 / 3 / 6 / 25 / 50 / 72 / 44
Slovenia / 53.6 / 80 / 9 / 9 / 25 / 49 / 65 / 43
Spain / 44.9 / 66 / 4 / 6 / 12 / 41 / 84 / 52
Sweden / 58.7 / 87 / 1 / 3 / 9 / 34 / 90 / 63
Palestinian Territories / 10.3 / 15 / 34 / 12 / 8 / 28 / 56 / 59
Tunisia / 28.69 / 38 / … / … / … / … / … / …
Turkey / 27.7 / 36 / 52 / 22 / 15 / 28 / 33 / 50
Hungary / 42.1 / 73 / 3 / 7 / 21 / 42 / 76 / 51
Source: 2007-2008 HDR
The relatively high percentage of women in comparison to men working in the tertiary sector is noteworthy. In this sector, the difference shrinks from an average (for all sectors) of 30 to 44%, to percentages that fluctuate between 48 and 63% (at least according to available data). This is due both to the tertiarisation of MPC economies, where jobs are being created mainly in the services sector, and to the fact that women have high levels of education that predispose them to taking on this type of work.
Table 2 – Informal employment as a % of non-rural work (non-OEDC countries)
Reference year / Total (%) / Women (%) / Men (%)Algeria / 1997 / 43 / 41 / 43
Egypt / 2003 / 45 / 59 / 42
Jordan / … / … / … / …
Israel / … / … / … / …
Lebanon / … / … / … / …
Libya / … / … / … / …
Morocco / 1995 / 45 / 47 / 44
Syria / 2003 / 22 / 7 / 24
Palestinian Territories / … / … / … / …
Tunisia / 1994/1995 / 50 / 39 / 53
Source: 2007-2008 HDR
The UNDP Arab Human Development Report 2005 (hereinafter referred to as AHDR)[5] - aptly entitled "Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World" - follows a set template that uses the Human Development Index (HDI) ranking as its reference base. The basic indicators of the HDI are life expectancy, school enrolment rates and income. Whereas the Beijing Platform and the Millennium Development Goals stress the central importance of female participation in the economy, the AHDR gives relatively little attention to this issue because it focuses more on developing capabilities as an indispensable prerequisite – but one which, to a large extent, has still to be realised - for female participation and overall development (see point 1.4).
Explaining low labour-market participation and economic-activity rates by using indicators such as insufficient training, low employability, and the burden of managing a family constitutes the mechanical transposition of criteria used to analyse experiences in Europe or advanced capitalist countries and produces contrasting, and not always useful, results. As can be seen (footnote 3 and Table 5 hereunder), school enrolment rates in MPCs are high and should therefore provide a strong foundation for any vocational training initiative. In the Central and Eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007, for example, high standards of school education brought returns in terms of a positive social competitiveness, boosting employability and aiding the reintegration of women who had been excluded from the labour market (more so than men) during the transition to a market economy. This problematic approach does not absolutely intend to deny the very great value of an education and training system which aims at enhancing basic and vocational training on a continuous basis and with a quality-oriented approach: conversely, it intends to highlight the need – which is equally urgent both in the MPC region and EU member states – to upgrade and support women’s training by creating tools which can ensure a virtuous cycle between the labour market management, economic policies and growth, the legislative framework of labour rights and specific women’s rights and – last but not least – the social and cultural context.