This report is drawn from national studies on Cambodia, Kazakhstan, and the Philippines. It comprises a gendered analysis of labour markets, policies, and legislation in each of threedeveloping member countries (DMCs) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and provides recommendations for legislation and policies that have the potential to expand or improve employment and work opportunities for women in specific sectors.
The present report is a desk review that includes good practice examples from each DMC and case studies in certain industrial sectors, and refers to two separately published global good practice reviews: one on social and economic policy and the other on legislation.
Major Themes of Gender Inequality and Constraints on Women in the Market
Attaining inclusive growth requires expanding employment opportunities and decent work outcomes for women to promote gender equality in labour markets. However, economic growth in these DMCs has not translated into sufficient employment growth, and there has been little improvement in gender equality in the labour market in either Cambodia or the Philippines, as measured by the share of women in waged employment in the non-agriculture sector. In the three DMCs discussed here, the estimated proportion of women’s annual earnings to men’s annual earnings stands at less than 71%.
Generally speaking, therefore, employment growth has not contributed to gender equality in the labour market. Employment growth alone, however, is not sufficient to judge inclusive growth, especially in low-income countries where there is significant underemployment and a large informal employment sector. An assessment of the labour market reveals that although some gender gaps have been reduced, women in each DMC still suffer persistent gender deficits.
Labour Force Participation Rate Gender Gap
Some progress has been made in reducing the gap between men and women in the LFPR in Kazakhstan and the Philippines. The lowest LFPR gender gap is 7.5 percentage points in Cambodia, and the gap is 10.7 percentage points in Kazakhstan but stands at 28.5 percentage points in the Philippines. The lower women’s LFPR compared to that of men arises from inferior employment and decent work opportunities, human capital differences, and unpaid domestic labour and care constraints. In the Philippines, in particular, the very low LFPR of women, combined with the very high national population, represents a substantial underutilization of women’s labour in the paid labour market.
Human Capital Gender Gap
A gender gap in human capital exists in varying degrees in all three DMCs, but it is most evident in Cambodia, where there are pronounced quantitative differences between men and women in terms of literacy and total years of schooling. In Kazakhstan and the Philippines, the differences are qualitative and reflect differences in the type of schooling; it takes the form of gender segregation in types of training and education. Both types of human capital gap constrain women’s participation in the labour market and contribute to the gender gap in decent work.
Unpaid Domestic and Care Work Gender Gap
There is a strong gendered division of domestic labour, with women having primary responsibility for household and care work and a higher total work burden relative to men. Gendered social norms contribute to women having greater responsibility for and time commitments to domestic and care work, and this has been slow to change, despite women’s increased participation in paid work. Relatively high fertility rates in all three DMCs continue to demand women’s unpaid labour, especially given the low provision of child care services.
Employment Rate Gender Gap
Women have lower employment rates than men, which gives rise to an employment rate gender gap in all three DMCs. Similar to the LFPR gap, the employment rate gender gap is particularly pronounced in the Philippines; in 2012, the employment rate gender gap stood at 26.2 percentage points. The gender gap in share of vulnerable employment (the sum of own-account and unpaid contributing family workers) is highest in Cambodia (at 8.7 percentage points), and the share of vulnerable employment is very high for both men and women. Women not only are more likely to be in vulnerable employment but also are more likely to fall in the category of unpaid contributing family workers, which offers the fewest opportunities for decent work.
Social Protection Gender Gap
A gender gap in social protection, particularly access to social insurance such as pensions, exists in all three DMCs. This arises largely because women have less access to formal wage employment. In summary, despite a decline in the gender gap in human capital (in Cambodia) and participation (in Kazakhstan and the Philippines), the gender gap in productive and decent work persists and in some cases has increased. The gender wage gap in all three DMCs has a profound and compounding effect on women in the labour market, not only because they are subject to the deficits of employment, more vulnerable work, and the unpaid work burden, but also because they are paid at a lower rate than men in many sectors even when they do find work.
