WUNRN
Also via Women's Livelihoods -
PWESCR
PAKISTAN
- WOMEN'S
DISCRIMINATION IN JOB OPPORTUNITIES IN FORMAL & INFORMAL ECONOMY
January 07, 2011
Islamabad - Despite increase in the overall percentage of women in the
workforce, women continue to face discrimination in the formal and informal
economy with growing numbers in the latter as more of them participate as
family earners to sustain their families.
These views were expressed at a national consultation organised by
International Labour Organisation (ILO) on Thursday. A group of 70 participants
from government, employers and workers, NGOs, research organisations, academia,
media and civil society participated in the consultation.
The consultations were organised to discuss the trends, opportunities and
development gaps for equal and decent employment of poor rural and urban women
in textiles, hospitality and amongst coastal and riverine communities
identified in the field researches carried out under the ILO project funded by
CIDA Promoting Gender Equality for Decent Employment.
The consultation was opened by National Project Coordinator ILO Frida Khan who
explained the project objectives and the research findings. She said that
women’s economic empowerment is perhaps the single most important step towards
gender equality in the personal and social sphere and that is why the project
promoting gender equality for decent employment aims to improve working
conditions and employment opportunities for women in selected economic sectors
in order to improve gender equality and decent work.
The findings were predominantly focused on gender situation analysis in areas
including employment trends, decent work opportunities, training needs and
institutional capacity assessments in the textile and hospitality sector and
coastal and riverine communities.
According to the findings, textile industry is a huge contributor to the
overall manufacturing output in Pakistan, generating about 8.5 per cent of
total GDP and providing for more than 15 million jobs in the manufacturing
sector. Within this sector, clothing and home textiles is where women are
highly concentrated and they work in stitching, sewing machine operations
followed by finishing and packing.
The findings revealed that service sector accounts for about 53.3 per cent of
GDP whereas within services, hospitality is a sub-sector where opportunities
for women are growing increasingly. “The hospitality sector employs 13.6 per
cent of the national labour force. Even though the seafood industry
contribution to GDP is small, it is a potentially important sector and the
contribution of women in particular often remains uncounted and invisible, and
the range of livelihoods strategies available in coastal communities,
unexplored.
Further some trends on company hiring and promotion policies, facilities and
working conditions and environment in hospitality and textiles were also
presented. According to these qualitative assessments, not many employers
prefer hiring women for high skilled jobs. Many of the women who do get a job
are offered short term or temporary assignments so the employer does not have
to bear the additional cost of benefits the workers may ask including maternity
leaves, transportation, day care facilities etc. Career progression is very
rare; however, a few women have broken glass ceilings and reached higher grades
in the management. These women have set precedents for other women who have
aspirations and are go-getters.
Current situation and apparent trends indicated in the research show that coastal
communities are facing a downward spiral. While men are primarily responsible
for fishing, women are heavily involved in pre-fishing and post-fishing
activities, e.g. preparation of food, repairing and cleaning of net and fishing
tools. Men are out fishing up to 20 days per month, leaving women to manage all
household and communal responsibilities. Despite their significant contribution
women have weak bargaining positions in the household, little involvement in
local resource management, and are essentially excluded from decision making
both at the household and community levels. She also told that a separate
research giving gender analysis of working trends and conditions of women and
men in coastal and riverine communities will be carried out and completed in
Kot Addu in Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the coming
months.