Labour Market Outcomes in Bangladesh: The Role of Poverty and Gender Norms

Abstract

It is frequently argued that female participation in the labour market is important for economic growth and poverty reduction. Despite this, the role that extreme poverty and gender norms play in influencing such participation is far from fully understood. This article uses nationally representative household data to address this issue using data for Bangladesh. In line with priorlargely qualitative -work, we find that extreme poverty is indeed important in explaining some of the growth in female employment in Bangladesh; we find evidence of a positive relationship between extreme poverty and participation, especially for women. In addition, we find that among young single women there appears to be a growing acceptance of their employment in the labour market. Despite this, rigid social and cultural norms are still apparent among other groups of women, especially in the rural areas.On affirme souvent que la participation des femmes au marche´du travail joue un roˆle important pour la croissance e´conomique et la re´duction de la pauvrete´. Pourtant, l 0 influence de la pauvreteé xtreˆme et des normes de genre sur cette participation est loin d 0 eˆtre parfaitement comprise. Cet article tente d 0 apporter des e´le´ments de re´ponse a`cette question en s 0 appuyant sur des donne´es repre´sentatives sur les me´nages du Bangladesh. Tout comme les travaux, essentiellement qualitatifs, effectue´s pre´ce´demment, nous constatons que la pauvrete´extreˆme est un facteur important expliquant une partie de la croissance de l 0 emploi des femmes au Bangladesh; Nous de´montrons que l 0 extreˆme pauvrete´est positivement corre´le´e avec cette participation, particulie`rement pour les femmes. En outre, nous constatons que les jeunes femmes ce´libataires semblent de plus en plus nombreuses a`accepter leur propre participation au marche´du travail. Cependant, des normes sociales et culturelles rigides continuent de re´gir les autres cate´gories de femmes, notamment en milieu rural.

Cultural norms, economic incentives and women’s labour market behaviour: empirical insights from Bangladesh

“…Household wealth and education of the household head, both indicative of household socio-economic status in Bangladesh, had negative associations with women's activity rates, a finding reported by other studies (Bridges et al, 2011;Hossain et al, 2004). This may reflect an income effect, as suggested by Khandker (1987), in that better-off households did not require their women to engage in economic activity.…”

“…This is a fairly typical pattern in most studies and characterises male activity rates as well (e.g. Bridges et al, 2011).…”

“…Most, however, did not have the data to take account of these socio-economic factors. For instance, a study by Bridges et al (2011) sought to use the 2000 Household Income and Expenditure to explore the impact of cultural norms on women's labour market behaviour. The absence of direct measures of cultural norms meant that Bridges et al were forced to infer the influence of these norms from their interpretation of a set of findings that were based on a standard set of economic/ demographic variables.…”

“…Women's labour force participation rate was around 4% according to the 1974 Bangladesh Census, 8% according to the 1984 Labour Force Survey, and rose slowly but steadily until it reached 26% in 2010 (Bridges, Lawson, & Begum, 2011;Mahmud & Mahmud, 1991). Moreover, most of the women who entered the labour force are concentrated in a very limited range of economic activities.…”

“…see Hossain, Bose, & Ahmad, 2004;Khandker, 1987;Mahmud, 2003;Rahman & Islam, 2013). Very few explore women's selection into different categories of labour market activity (for exceptions see Bridges et al, 2011;Rahman & Islam, 2013). Secondly, since most quantitative studies rely on official surveys, they confine themselves to the standard explanatory variables such as age, marital status, number of children, education and so on that are included in such surveys.…”