On August 29, 2021, South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) in collaboration with World Vision Bangladesh presented results from the study “Role of Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Bangladesh Economy”. The results of the research were disclosed through a webinar which was moderated by Mr. Chandan Z. Gomes, Senior Director, Operations and Program Quality Department, World Vision Bangladesh. Dr. Sayema Haque Bidisha, Professor of Economics, University of Dhaka, and Research Director of SANEM and Mr. Mahtab Uddin, Lecturer, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka, and Research Economist of SANEM presented the findings from the study in the webinar. Ms. Nasima Begum, Member (Secretary), Socio-Economic Infrastructure Division, Ministry of Planning; Mr. Gunjan Dallakoti, SME Development Specialist of ILO Office, Dhaka; Dr. Sanzida Akhter, Associate Professor, Department of Women and Gender Studies, University of Dhaka; Ms. Laila Farzana, Senior Category Head (Marketing), Unilever Bangladesh; Ms. Mehzabin Ahmed, Programme Coordinator, UN Women Bangladesh were the panellists of the session. Dr. Selim Raihan, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka and Executive Director of SANEM, and Mr. Suresh Bartlett, National Director, World Vision Bangladesh were also present during the event.

The main objectives of this study were to assess the overall scenario of women’s economic empowerment (WEE) in Bangladesh based on the 3 programs of World Vision Bangladesh (i.e. UPG, NSVC, Nobojatra), quantify the relationship between women’s economic empowerment and GDP, and prioritize a set of policy recommendations for ensuring women’s economic empowerment based on the findings. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used in data collection for the study. A survey was conducted on women aged 15 and above across 850 households among which 650 households benefitted from the 3 programs of WVB and 200 did not who are termed as non-beneficiaries in the study. The surveyed districts include Barisal, Chattogram, Dhaka, Satkhira, Jamalpur, Mymensingh, Rajshahi, Rangpur, and Sunamganj.

Dr. Sayema Haque Bidisha opened the discussion by bringing up the background and context of this study. She said that sustainable development goals cannot be achieved without improving the socio-economic condition of women and so investing in women’s economic empowerment (WEE) can be considered as an essential strategy for Bangladesh’s development. The government, NGOs, and various development partners have been playing an important role in women’s empowerment in our country.

Dr. Bidisha explained that economic empowerment means creating opportunities for women to join the labour force and helping them enter the labour market. Mr. Mahtab Uddin discussed the existing research which shows that there exists a positive relationship between female participation in the labour force and economic growth. The wide array of past studies indicates that the gender gap, education, and economic growth are related to each other – giving us all the more reason to work in this area. He mentioned that based on these existing works, 7 indicators for measuring women economic empowerment were identified which are: the working status of women in the past seven days, whether women are earners or not, women’s involvement in major household decision making, women’s control over her own earning and how to spend it, women’s control over overall household spending, women’s ownership of productive assets such as land, animals, and machinery, and women’s access to information and technology.

Some of the existing data were presented which showed that while 42.6% of men were wage employed in 2016-17, the percentage is 31.2% for the female and in the same year, 52.5% men and 39.2% female were self-employed. Unfortunately, when it comes to being an unpaid family worker, the number is 4.2% for the men and 29.1% for the female. Besides, in the year 2018, SANEM conducted a study based on the indicators mentioned previously and found that only 19% of the working-age women were earning in the urban areas and the number stood at 11% for rural areas. It was also seen that while 22.95% of the working-age women who went to universities were earning, 20% of the women who had an income had no education to speak of. Mr. Mahtab Uddin also mentioned that when it comes to occupation distribution, the Labour Force Survey in 2017 revealed that the share of female workers was highest in the skilled agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sector at 53.8% and the second-highest in elementary occupations.

The study compared between the beneficiary and the non-beneficiary households and found that while 81.9% of 15 to 49-year-old men earn, only 34.4% of women do the same. Also, the percentage of earning, beneficiary, and non-beneficiary women is 44.01% and 34.84% respectively. In terms of savings, the study shows that 63.7% beneficiary and 42.9% non-beneficiary earning women save parts of their earning. Moreover, the beneficiary women have more literacy on financial issues like familiarity and using mobile banking, owning a personal mobile banking account, having a formal bank account than the non-beneficiary women aged 15 and above. While 42.5% of the beneficiary women have a formal bank and/or mobile bank account, only 28.4% of the non-beneficiary women have the same.

Mr. Mahtab Uddin further stated that 44.6% beneficiary women and 30.4% non-beneficiary women-owned small livestock and overall, the percentage of women holding large livestock, small livestock, farm equipment, and such productive assets is more in case of the beneficiary women. In addition, the women who benefit from the 3 programs of World Vision Bangladesh participate more in the household decisions regarding education, marriage, employment choice, health, investment, and loans, etc. than the non-beneficiary women. It was observed that women participate more in issues such as education, marriage, etc. but participate less in the investment, savings, IGA, etc. issues.

A positive indicator is that in the case of school enrollment, the percentage is high for both beneficiary and non-beneficiary households with the percentage of 96.8% and 93% respectively. Also, the dropout rate in both primary and lower secondary is very low compared to the enrollment rate for both types of households.

The presentation also showed that on average, the monthly expenditure on education and healthcare is more in the beneficiary households meaning that they are investing more in the human capital development compared to the non-beneficiary households. The research found that both beneficiary and non-beneficiary women have a very similar experience when it comes to the access of media and ICT which is around 30% for media and 5-6% for ICT. Then, the findings on violence against women were presented. Sadly, it was seen that in the last 12 months, around 47% of non-beneficiary women have faced any form of violation and the number for the beneficiary women stood at a staggering 50%.

The study found that the overall women’s economic empowerment score was better for the beneficiary women (47.9) than the non-beneficiary women (42.61). Also, beneficiaries from the Dhaka division are getting the most benefits from the aforementioned programs of WVB and that of the Barisal division are getting the least. Mr. Uddin stated that the study found that male perception is necessary for WEE in our country. Almost one-third of the male respondents thought if women engaged in work, they would eventually take jobs away from men. But the majority of the surveyed males agreed that if women engaged in income-generating activities, that would help households. In short, empirical evidence found that WVB interventions, favourable male perception, and education of women matters for women’s economic empowerment.

The presentation also covered the topic of how female employment affects GDP growth in Bangladesh. It was discussed that the analysis showed that a 1% increase in female employment can effectively increase economic growth by 0.31%. According to the study, doubling female employment will lead to a 31 percent increase in the GDP of Bangladesh in the long run.

At this point, Dr. Bidisha discussed the policy recommendations for the government, development partners, NGOs, and the private sector. An increase in the school stipends to contain the dropout rate due to the pandemic, textbooks sensitive to women empowerment, workplace safety and safe transportation for women, awareness of family counseling, gender-friendly tax incentives for the private sectors were some of the key features recommended for the government during this session. The developments partners were recommended to include issues related to women’s economic environment, gender-based violence, equal rights, sensitizing the male perception on the importance of women’s economic empowerment, women’s employment, etc. in their projects. Furthermore, the private sectors were recommended to integrate women in the supply chain, link the CSR funds with packages for female agriculture workers, ensure essential services such as daycare centers, paid maternity leaves, etc., and engage women in non-traditional works to increase female employment.

Ms. Nasima Begum remarked that collaboration between government, private sector, and development partners is extremely important in order to increase women’s economic empowerment. She also agreed with the finding that male perception is essential for the females of our country to move forward economically. She mentioned that though government gives a six-month maternity leave to female employees, it is not implemented in the private sector equally and this scenario needs to change as more female workers are employed in the private sector compared to the government/public sector.

Mr. Gunjan Dallakoti appreciated the fact that the four broader themes in women’s economic empowerment, the access, the agency, the choice, the control have been successfully carried away during the program design. He said that not only access to the property but also the opportunity to learn skills, access to knowledge, and improving business skills, access to software parks could be one of the important aspects that leads to the access to the agency for women. He also noted that another critical point that can be included in women’s economic empowerment measurement is freedom from risk and violence. He thanked SANEM and World Vision Bangladesh for conducting the study and sharing the results as the recommendations given will be helpful for program designers in the future.

Dr. Sanzida Akhter emphasized that special concentration and focus should be given to find why, even after addressing financial and social aspects by the WVB programs, violence against women of beneficiary and non-beneficiary is similar. Dr. Akhter also said research should be conducted to see why, despite having a higher level of education, employment of women is not as much as we think it should be after completing higher studies.

Ms. Laila Farzana focused on the recommendations discussed during the presentation. She said that female share in the value chain can be increased if women started owning small businesses such as shops. She stated that many agencies, private sectors are working in ensuring equal gender employment which is commendable. Besides, she talked about sustaining female employment where she added that safe transportation, help from the workplace such as daycare centers must be ensured in order to sustain the female participation rate in the labor force.

Ms. Mehzabin Ahmed thanked SANEM and WVB for going in-depth to understand the WEE of Bangladesh and for not only focusing on investment and savings aspect as is usually done in this sort of study. Socio-cultural barriers and male perception are the areas the development organizations need to work on in order to help our women achieve their full potential according to her.

Dr. Selim Raihan suggested that the micro-level interventions should be backed up by the macro-level programs in order to sustain the progress our country has made till now. Eagerness from the government body as well as the policymakers are extremely necessary to ensure women’s economic empowerment in Bangladesh.

Open discussion started with Mr. Benedict Alo D’Rozario, President, Caritas Asia who focused on the importance of social capital to widen the scope of women’s economic empowerment. Dr. Nurun Nahar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Planning shared that we need to look at the strengths and threats in order to increase women’s empowerment.

Mr. Suresh Bartlett in his closing speech mentioned how despite having female leadership at the highest level of the country, we are still lagging at the smaller scale. He stated that studies and researches must be conducted regarding this matter and the findings of such studies should be implemented at a macro level.

Download the presentation of the webinar.