The debate about the relationship between paid work and women’s position within the family and society is a long-standing one. Some argue that women’s integration into the market is the key to their empowerment while others offer more sceptical, often pessimistic, accounts of this relationship. These contradictory viewpoints reflect a variety of factors: variations in how empowerment itself is understood, variations in the cultural meanings and social acceptability of paid work for women across different contexts and the nature of the available work opportunities within particular contexts.
This paper uses a combination of survey data and qualitative interviews to explore the impact of paid work on various indicators of women’s empowerment ranging from shifts in intra-household decision-making processes to women’s participation in public life. It finds that forms of work that offer regular and relatively independent incomes hold out the greater transformative potential. In addition, it highlights a range of other factors that also appear to contribute to women’s voice and agency in the context of Bangladesh.
Key Findings:
- Paid work, particularly formal paid work, appears to make a significant difference to women’s ability to exercise agency across a range of significant and less significant income-related decisions.
- Women who regularly leave the home in order to work find the prospect of moving unaccompanied in the public domain for other purposes far less intimidating than women who work within the home.
- Women in formal employment are most likely to be approached by others for advice and information, seen as evidence of occupying a position of some authority and respect within a community or neighbourhood.
- The vast majority of women in the sample voted in both national and local elections, with 91% of them voting in the local elections. Surprisingly, women in formal work are among the least likely to have voted. There is little evidence that women are actively engaged in other aspects of governance in public life, regardless of the category of work.
- 96% of the women sampled believe that having an income is important for their sense of self-reliance and 95% believe that husbands should help with household work and childcare if wives work outside the home. There is little variation by work status for these statements. However, a question to married women about husbands’ assistance in various household tasks suggests that very few husbands take primary responsibility in any of the jobs mentioned—although some help out in a secondary role.
- 93% of the women are hopeful about the future, with 65% feeling that they have considerable control over their own lives. Women in formal employment were the most optimistic and felt the greatest amount of control compared to women in informal outside work.
- There is a strong consensus that education is the most significant resource for women in general, with about 80% of the sample believing this, regardless of work status. Only around 10% cited credit, the next most frequently reported resource. However, there is far less consensus when it comes to the most important resource in the women’s own lives. Education and credit remained the most frequently cited, but this varies by work status.
- The findings provide strong support for the argument that it is the nature of women’s paid work, rather than the simple face of earning money, that has the potential to bring about shifts in gender relations: in terms of how women view themselves and how they are viewed by others, as well as in their capacity for voice and agency.
- The empowerment potential of paid work also has costs. Forms of work that empower women also leave them vulnerable to harassment and abuse because it takes them into the public domain. It can also involve considerable levels of stress and take a toll on their health: this is particularly true of women in informal outside work.
