Perera & Daughters III

A feminised economic recovery

In two previous columns captioned ‘Perera & Daughters,’ I dealt with the role of women in development and politics. This column deals with a stunning phenomenon – a feminised economic recovery, which is taking the world by storm.

A recent story in a newspaper highlighted that the economic recovery in the United States was fast becoming a man-less recovery, in that the main victims of the recession of 2007-2008 were men and that the men were disproportionately represented in the types of businesses which were hardest by the recession, such as financial services, manufacturing and construction.

The recovery, if the halting pace at which the US economy is moving can be truthfully, called that at all, is disproportionately favouring women; it is in fact a feminised recovery. In August 2009, male unemployment in the US stood at 11% while it was 8.3% for women.

Larry Summers, the economist who was President of Harvard University and one time President Obama’s top economic advisor, about to return to Harvard, has gone on record saying, “When the economy recovers, five years from now , one in six men who are 25 to 54 will not be working.”

Feminisation of the work force

This feminisation of the work force is one of stunning proportions, for an industrialised nation. In more traditional primary industry oriented economies or transformational ones, like Sri Lanka, women’s role in the economy has always been underestimated and underemphasised.

In traditional agriculture and fisheries, women play a critical role. In rice and related crops, transplanting, harvesting and processing have always been traditionally women’s roles. In traditional fishery, value addition, processing and marketing were to a great extent, female responsibilities. With the dawn of plantation agriculture, tea plucking, rubber tapping and coconut processing were all exclusively women’s roles.

Today, in Sri Lanka, with labour shortages and optional employment opportunities, mechanisation is increasingly being resorted to, with the fact that garment factories, foreign jobs as housemaids, government service and the armed forces are increasingly drawing the female work force.

In Sri Lanka a high proportion of the bottom of the pyramid in government service, clerks, primary and secondary teachers, etc., are women. Policymakers are increasingly becoming aware that the human resource policy framework essentially must provide for the full participation of the both the brains and the brawn of the nation’s women if economic development is to be achieved and economic rewards distributed in an equitable manner.

Importance of women in the economy

Another factor which reflects the importance of women in the economy is a study done by the House of Commons Library in Britain for the Fawcett Society, on the gender impact of the deep cuts in expenditure and increases in taxation announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in order to bring Britain’s humongous budget deficit under control.

It found that 72% of the reforms will take money away from women, while only 28% will do so from men. Others argue that as in the US, women in Britain came through the recession better off than men; two-thirds of those made unemployed by the crisis have been men.

The explosion of microfinance as a development tool and the 70% gender bias it has shown worldwide, including South Asia, is affecting the quality of life indicators positively, as studies have conclusively shown that women reinvest 90% of their income into community and family, housing, children’s health, education and nutrition, compared to 40% by men. Although alcohol and gambling have made some inroads into women’s groups in some communities, it is not yet endemic.

Support systems lacking

This is happening in developing and emerging economies, notwithstanding inadequate support for women in their essential role of child bearing, child care and nurture. There are hardly support systems, outside the immediate family circle, existing to assist a house maid who has to leave her young growing up and vulnerable children and travel to West Asia to earn money as a housemaid, or travel 100 kilometres to a garment factory in another part of the country.

Even those women who work near their homes, day care for children or elderly relatives is not available, outside the ubiquitous, unregulated preschools which provide a dubious level of service, in most cases.

The other day at Sigiriya I was surprised to see a poster advertising vacancies and interviews for female machine operators to be held at a nearby religious institution, for vacancies in a garment factory near Avissawella. The below replacement level birth rate which has prevailed here for over the last two or three decades is really hitting home.

Worldwide phenomenon

Universal access to education in Sri Lanka has also made women academically on par if not superior to men and in the work force, in offices and factories, women have important functions and hold responsible posts.

This is a worldwide phenomenon; in Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Russia, the vast majority of college graduates are female. American women are already the breadwinners or financially on par with their husbands in two thirds of all households.

In the European Community, women filled two-thirds of eight million new jobs created since 2000. American women are the decision makers in 83% of all purchases by consumers; 89% of all bank accounts in the US are held by women; 51% of the personnel wealth is held by women; and American women control over US$ 5 trillion in consumer spending.

In Japan, the majority of currency traders are women. The number of female managers in Singapore has tripled. One in five management jobs in Hong Kong are held by women. South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia have reached their economic prowess by legions of their women working in repetitive, dead-end, poorly paid (by First World standards) factory jobs in electronics, textiles and making toys.

The same revolution is being repeated in Bangladesh and China. The information and communication technology revolution in Bangalooru, Hyderabad and Chennai is again driven by women computer programmers and call centre operators, to a large extent.

This has been a revolution based on economic necessity, not a revolution brought about by confrontation, marches and manifestos. Now, only when the one child policy in China hits home, through a shortage of those of working age, we find strikes for higher pay and perks in Honda, Toyota and Samsung factories of multinational corporations.

Feminised future

So, one thing is clear, the future is feminised and it is already here, it is destined to belong to women. Only those who refuse to see the obvious do not see it.

Indira and Sonia Gandhi in India, the two Begums of Bangladesh, the Bandaranaikes here and Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan in South Asian politics; locally, the Ena Aluwihare De Silvas, Barbara Sansonis, and Otara Gunewardenes in business and innovation, in academia, in the professions, in the sciences, in public services, healthcare, etc., across the board, women have and are destined to play an equal if not dominant role in society generally and in the economy specifically, in the future.

Regarding the presence and effect of women on corporate boards, a recent study by the Wellesley Centre for Women found that three was the magic number when it came to impact of women on corporate decision making; after that tipping point is reached, the board as a whole begins to function differently.

Wakeup call

The policy framework to make this happen painlessly, providing for facilitation of a women’s essential role of nurturing the next generation, their right to employment and to bring a reality to check into men’s responsibilities in this area, such as parenting leave in the Scandinavian countries, etc., has to be urgently provided.

In this area, the world generally, and developing and emerging economies in particular, are sorely lacking. May be the man-less, feminised economic recovery in the world’s largest economy may be a wakeup call to the world’s policymakers?

(The writer is a lawyer, who has over 30 years experience as a CEO in both government and private sectors. He retired from the office of Secretary, Ministry of Finance and currently is the Managing Director of the Sri Lanka Business Development Centre.)