Women's Employment - United Nations Research Institute for Social ...

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Female employment under export-propelled industrialization 2. Manufacturing employment According to the Census of Manufacturing Industries (CMI), approximately 200,000 women were employed in the manufacturing sector in Bangladesh in 1991-92 (the latest reference year for which information on sectoral aggregates is available from an official source). The CMI essentially covers formal sector registered enterprises with 10 or more employees. These are usually located in urban areas. However, in addition to being quite dated, the census estimate suffers from serious undercoverage. For example, in 1991-92, the RMG sector alone employed 700,000 female workers (as we will see later), whereas the comparable CMI (1991-92) figure is 150,000. In the absence of more reliable aggregate estimates, we may still analyse the CMI data assuming that it provides a representative set of cross-section information. According to the figures presented in Table 2, women accounted for 15.3 per cent of the total number of manufacturing sector employees in Bangladesh in 1991-92. More than 88 per cent of the women engaged in the sector were regular production workers (“operatives”, in CMI terms) and another 9.6 per cent constituted hired casual workers. Less than 1 per cent of the women employees were involved in administrative and clerical activities, and about 0.3 per cent belonged to the entrepreneur category. Table 2: Trend in female employment and wage in the manufacturing sector Indicator 1988-89 1989-90 1990-91 1991-92 Women’s share in total mfg employment 14.1 14.20 15.72 15.30 Women’s share in total operatives 16.41 16.55 17.76 18.06 Female-male wage ratio (all employees) 0.40 0.55 0.52 0.52 Female-male wage ratio (operatives) 0.46 0.51 0.47 0.57 Source: BBS, 1996a. On average, a manufacturing enterprise in the organized sector in Bangladesh has seven women employees. Female employment is highest in joint ventures (56 female employees per unit), followed by state-owned enterprises (more than 12 female employees per unit). 225
Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco The figure for the exclusively locally-owned private sector units is a little above seven. The overwhelming majority (98.7 per cent) of the women employees are located in private sector enterprises (local and joint ventures taken together). It may be observed from Table 2 that, between 1988-89 and 1991- 92, women’s share in total manufacturing employment increased from 14.1 per cent to 15.3 per cent, whereas operatives increased from 16.4 per cent to 18.1 per cent. The share of female workers in total manufacturing employment registered a fall between 1990-91 and 1991-92, but the extent to which this is a statistical artefact or a reflection of recent reform measures affecting the manufacturing sector remains to be seen. Sectoral distribution The sectoral distribution of female manufacturing employment in Bangladesh remains highly skewed, as shown in Table 3 and annex Table 1. The wearing apparel sector, categorized under Bangladesh Standard Industrial Code (BSIC) 323, alone employs about 85 per cent of the female industrial employees (which is about 12.9 per cent of total manufacturing employment). This is followed by textile manufacturing including cotton, synthetic and jute textiles (BSIC 321 and 322), which account for about 6 per cent of female industrial employees or approximately 1 per cent of total manufacturing employment. The third most important provider of female employment is food processing (BSIC 311 and 312), which account for just over 3.2 per cent of female industrial employees or 0.5 per cent of all manufacturing employment. Wood work, cigarette manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries employ about 1.84 per cent, 1.47 per cent and 0.58 per cent of female industrial employees respectively. Annex Table 1 shows that this pattern of sectoral distribution for all types of female employees also holds true for female production workers. The current state of industrial statistics, unfortunately, does not allow us to readily relate the market orientation of the enterprises with the gender composition of their labour force. Nonetheless, it is quite evident from the above figures that at least 91 per cent of female manufacturing employment is concentrated in enterprises that either produce for direct export (e.g., garments and jute), or that produce outputs “deemed exports”, because they constitute export linkage industries. 226
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Women’s Employment in the Textile
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This United Nations Research Instit
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Acknowledgements Many people have b
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notwithstanding the inertia of the
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Carol Miller is a policy analyst on
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xii VII. Contribution of different
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Introduction 1 Introduction 1 Shahr
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Introduction Table 1: Basic indicat
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Introduction women have been tradit
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Introduction The chapters on Bangla
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Introduction occurs, on average, at
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Introduction women workers related
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Introduction in low-income countrie
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Introduction by repaying their “d
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Introduction participate in labour
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Introduction their bargaining power
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Introduction processing zones hypot
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Introduction IV. The case studies T
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Introduction experience in garment
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Introduction V. Conclusion Although
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Introduction improved technology. T
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Introduction References Afsar, R. (
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Introduction Household Power Relati
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Wage discrimination by gender in Mo
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Gender and employment in Moroccan t
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Gender dimensions of labour migrati
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Table 1: Total number of male and f
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Becoming a garment worker 5Becoming
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Becoming a garment worker garment w
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Becoming a garment worker Table 1:
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Becoming a garment worker view of t
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Becoming a garment worker that time
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Becoming a garment worker 2. “I e
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Becoming a garment worker out that
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Becoming a garment worker being. Th
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Becoming a garment worker support t
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Becoming a garment worker they firs
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Becoming a garment worker V. Conclu
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