Published in The Independent on Sunday, 8 March 2015.
Fight for equal wages
Faisal Mahmud
Life is not a bed of roses for Jamfuli. Growing up in the unforgiving landscape of ‘char’, or shoal area, she had learnt to live with hardship. But life in the capital is proving to be even harder for her. “My husband left me. I have two kids, one is going school. To support my family, I have to work for eight hours at a construction site and I am paid Tk 200 to Tk 225 on a daily basis”, Jamfuli told this correspondent in Dhaka recently.
“The hard work doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is that by doing the same work, a male labourer gets Tk 350 to Tk 400. The supervisor never gave us any explanation about the higher payment of male labourers, though we wanted to know.”
Jamfuli’s case is just one example of wage discrimination between male and female labourers in the country, and the country is going to observe International Women’s Day today in such a reality.
All around the world, International Women’s Day represents an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women while calling for greater equality.
The theme of the day this year is ‘Make It Happen’, encouraging effective action for advancing and recognising women.
Although the demand for and employment of female labourers have increased manifold in recent years, taking advantage of their poverty and lack of awareness, people still hire them for low wages.
The ILO Report of 2010 shows that women in Bangladesh earn 21 per cent less per hour compared to their male counterparts. Another study, “Economic Justice for Women”, conducted by the research organisation Steps Towards Development (STD) over a sample group of over 5,000 male and female workers found that, 56 per cent of the male workers get Tk 200-400 daily, whereas only seven per cent of the women workers get the same amount in similar jobs.
The STD study also looked at the condition of small women entrepreneurs and found that 47 per cent of them sell their products from the production site and do not have the opportunity to participate in the competitive market. Only four per cent of the female entrepreneurs can take the products to anearby town.
Another study by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) found that a female operator in an RMG factory gets 71.3 per cent of a male operator’s earnings, and a female helper only 52.7 per cent of what a male helper earns.
The CPD study also said that the total amount of unpaid domestic work carried out by women in Bangladesh is equivalent to 10.75 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country.
The study said that while a man is involved in unpaid family work for about 2.5 hours daily, a woman was found to be doing such work for 7.7 hours a day, around three times higher.
The CPD said if the woman’s household work was counted on the basis of willingness to accept method, the contribution would be equivalent to 87.2 per cent of the GDP (of FY2013-14). However, if it is based on replacement cost method, the contribution would be 76.8 per cent of the GDP of the same fiscal year.
Research director of the CPD, Fahmida Khatun, said that through the CPD study they have proven that being a woman in Bangladesh means a neglected and discriminated existence. “Be it a poor village woman or an educated urban woman, the realities for them are mostly the same — a subordinate position relative to men both within and outside the household”, she said.
An all-out effort towards improving the condition of women and bridging the gap between men and women still remains unfinished in the nation’s development and planning schemes. “This should start by removing the gap between the minimum wages of male and female”, she said, adding that the government should declare a minimum wage for “informal” labour sectors, like agriculture and construction, to reduce gender-based wage discrimination. Executive director of Ain o Salish Kendra, Sultana Kamal, said the struggle for equal wages for women have been continuing since 1857. The gap in earnings reflects the discrimination that women face in their family lives as well. “Both injustices need to be addressed”, she said.
The main reason why women entrepreneurs cannot go far from their homes to find a better market is that they have to look after household chores, besides running the businesses, she added.
Bangladesh Mahila Parishad president, Ayesha Khanam, said that although women constitute a vast majority of the RMG sector workers, there is little or no representation of women in trade unions. Unfortunately, this poor representation of women in policy making is true for almost all sectors. Women are contributing to the labour force, but due to lack of decision making power in domestic and public spheres, they are not reaping the benefit of their hard work, said Khanam.