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Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco flexibility at the same time as employment stability and upward mobility for employees. The key areas for reform that are stressed are job flexibility and security; training and flexibility; worker participation; and improving productivity and participation of workers in the informal sector. It is argued that these measures would have spin-offs in terms of addressing gender inequality in labour markets. The tentative nature of the findings from this research require further, more detailed study in order to fully evaluate appropriate policy options. Some additional work has been done under the UNRISD project which looks at discrimination within the textile export sub-sector (Belghazi, 1996a 15 ; 1996b; Bourqia, this volume). This work underlines the gender-segmented nature of the urban labour market. Certain features of textile employment are identified which suggest it is less discriminatory than other sectors. For example, the starting wage does not differ by gender; discriminatory features are expressed mainly through different treatment in employment. 16 This study also provides evidence on returns to experience and education at different levels of the female workforce. Returns to work experience are better in textile than in other sectors and the sector does not penalize low education levels, although rewards to middle levels of education are poor. This implies that women from poor families face considerable difficulties in trying to improve their position in the labour market. This may threaten the existing niche of relatively uneducated, low-income women in the manufacturing labour force, when textile export firms find it necessary to upgrade their production methods and organization in response to global competition. Overall, this research raises a number of questions which could usefully be pursued. For example, do men in feminized industries fare badly compared to other sectors? Do similar features apply to other feminized industries (as well as textiles)? One hypothesis worth exploring is whether the competitive pressures of textile export production mean that, while in other sectors, gender prejudices allow men to capture an economic “rent”, in the more competitive textile industry, the equivalence of male and female productivity is acknowledged (Joekes, 1996). Linked to the overall performance of the economy, it would also be worth exploring whether the high degree of segmentation in the urban labour market adds a further layer of static allocative inefficiency to that linked to wage discrimination per se. 54
Wage discrimination by gender in Morocco’s urban labour force Endnotes 1. This chapter is based on a series of research papers prepared by Saâd Belghazi for the UNRISD programme on Technical Co-operation and Women’s Lives (see references). Sally Baden has summarized, interpreted and contextualized Belghazi’s empirical analysis and related hypotheses. 2. The deficit in the balance of payments current account fell from 12.9 per cent of GDP in 1982, to 2 per cent of GDP in 1993 (Belghazi, 1995:3). 3. Data used in this study originate for the national urban employment surveys (ENPAU), which cover both formal and informal sectors. The rural population is not covered. 4. This is based on official statistics which may have gender-biased definitions of what constitutes work and/or produce gender bias in the data collection procedures. It has been reported from elsewhere in the Arab states that women who are working may not define themselves as doing so (Anker and Dixon Mueller, 1988). 5. The measurement of unemployment and underemployment, by gender, is beset with difficulties. Women are often less likely to report as unemployed. Definitions of underemployment (here — working less than 32 hours per week) are somewhat arbitrary and tend, by definition, to be higher for women who devote less time to paid work because of domestic responsibilities. 6. These data are not disaggregated by gender. The data on unemployment and education levels show a decline in total unemployment rate from 19.9 per cent in 1985 to 15.9 per cent in 1993 (Belghazi, 1995b:35). This is inconsistent with reported data in Table 1 which suggest rising unemployment rates for both men and women over the 1986-93 period. 7. No trend data were available on underemployment by gender. 8. An alternative interpretation might be that, in sectors where the rate of female employment is already quite high, the increase in the average wage reflects a reverse shift in the male-female ratio in the sectoral labour force. 9. The correlation coefficient between number of women employed and average wage was –0.1090 compared to –0.0751 between level of exports and average wage. 10. The model used for the analysis of wage determination and discrimination is as follows: lnSf = a1*ln vf + a2* qf + kf + u ln Sm = b1*ln vm + b2*qm +km +u ln Esfm = ln Sf - ln Sm = (a1-b1)*lnVf + (a2-b2)*qf + (kf-fm) with lnSfm = b1*ln vf + b2* ln Qf + km + u In final form: ln Esfm = C1*ln vf + c2* qf + ke +u Where: Sf = women’s wages Sm = men’s wages Sfm = theoretical wages for women if there was equal treatment of both sexes ESmf = ratio of men’s and women’s wages v = a vector of quantitative variables, together with the indicator f for the female population and m for the male population; q = a vector of qualitative variables, together with m (male population) and f (female population) indicators; a1 and a2 = vectors of coefficients of quantitative and qualitative variables respectively for the female population 55
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Women’s Employment in the Textile
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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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Becoming a garment worker Cole P. D
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