Demographic and Health Survey 2009-10 - Timor-Leste Ministry of ...

WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT AND DEMOGRAPHIC
AND HEALTH OUTCOMES 15
This chapter highlights information on additional indicators of women’s empowerment, other
than education and employment, and relates those indices to demographic and health outcomes.
Timorese society assigns strict gender roles for men and women that lead to discriminatory practices
against women. In daily life, cultural norms in Timor-Leste assign the dominant role to men
(patriarchal system) in planning or making decisions where tradition and customary law favors men
over women. As a consequence, women lag behind men in educational attainment, literacy, and
exposure to mass media, which are critical to women’s empowerment and can exert considerable
influence on their development and their ability to strengthen their position within the household and
in society in general. In addition, the existing patriarchal system, which is prevalent in Southeast Asia,
undermines women vis-à-vis men and subsumes their contribution to society even when they are
educated or come from wealthy households (Kandiyoti, 1988). As women’s involvement in the
nondomestic sphere lessens, they become more dependent on men economically, which exacerbates
their inability to participate in the decisionmaking process in the household. On the other hand,
women in economically poor households are driven outside the domestic sphere in search of
employment to fulfill their economic needs, which could in turn give them some degree of
independence and role in the decisionmaking process (Kandiyoti, 1988).
As discussed in Chapter 3, data from the 2009-10 TLDHS show that men have higher
educational attainment at all levels than women, that greater proportions of men than women are
literate, and that men are more likely to be currently employed than women. In addition, the data
show that women who belong to households in the highest wealth quintile are less likely to be
employed. In this chapter, we examine other factors that empower women, such as women’s control
over their own cash earnings and that of their husband’s, their participation in decisionmaking, their
acceptance of wife beating, and their attitude toward the right of women to refuse sexual intercourse
with their husband. These data are used in the estimation of empowerment indicators and the extent to
which women’s empowerment influences health outcomes (such as their reproductive health care
practices, contraceptive use, and unmet need).
15.1 EMPLOYMENT AND FORM OF EARNINGS
Table 15.1 shows the percentage of currently married women and men age 15-49 who were
employed in the 12 months before the survey and the percent distribution of the employed
respondents by type of earnings they received (cash, in-kind, both, or neither). Forty-four percent of
currently married women reported being employed in the past 12 months. The percentage of currently
married women who were employed increases with age up to 56 percent for women age 45-49.
Although employment is assumed to go hand in hand with payment for work, not all women
receive earnings for the work they do, and even among women who do receive earnings, not all are
paid in cash. Only about one in five employed women (19 percent) receives payment in cash, and less
than 1 percent receive both cash and payment in-kind. One percent receive payment in-kind only.
Four in five employed women do not receive any form of payment for their work. As discussed in
Chapter 3, these women are mostly involved in agricultural work and are predominantly working for a
family member or are self-employed.
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