Women’s ‘double day’ the dark secret of Asia’s economy

Oxfam launches new report on women and work on eve of World Economic Forum on ASEAN

Islamabad

The secret of Asia’s competitiveness in the global market is simple: paying poor women low wages and assigning them all unpaid care work.

International non-profit Oxfam calls on government and business leaders meeting at the World Economic Forum on ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations), in Malaysia, this week, to support policies that will reverse the situation of working women, and stave off the worsening gender and economic inequality in the region.

In recent decades, Asia has experienced remarkable levels of economic growth. According to the International Monetary Fund, between 1990 and 2015, the region’s economy grew at an average of six percent a year. But this growth has only widened the inequality between rich and poor people, and deepened the inequality between men and women.

“Despite high and sustained levels of economic growth in Asia, the divide between rich and poor has grown wider. Women who are in the lowest paid and most insecure jobs have received a smaller slice of the economic pie. Like other countries in the region, women in Pakistan earn less in same type of jobs as men for example in 2012, male agricultural workers earned $2.97 per day while female agricultural workers earned US $1.68 per day. Pakistan has policies in place regarding minimum wages including The Minimum Wages Ordinance of 1961. The situation of poor women can be turned around by effective implementation of these policies and by redistributing women’s unpaid care work.” said Mohammed Qazilbash, Country Director, Oxfam in Pakistan.

Oxfam’s new report, underpaid and undervalue: How inequality defines women's work in Asia, found that in Asia women’s wages comprise between 70 and 90 per cent of men’s wages. Businesses seemed to have found in women docile workers who abide by poor working conditions and cheap wages, and who do not assert their labour rights. Women also continue to lead ‘double days’ they perform household chores and run households on top of working outside the home, resulting in their time poverty.

In its report, Oxfam challenged businesses to make the shift from minimum wages to living wages. A living wage factors in expenses for suitable housing, education, food, transportation, and health. It allows workers to set aside discretionary income for unforeseen events such as accidents and disasters. According to UN Women, it is women, found in low paid jobs, who will gain the most from living wages, and their implementation can narrow wage gaps.

Oxfam’s report also called for more government investments in public services, including healthcare, water and sanitation, which reduce and redistribute unpaid care work.

Public investments in the care economy can create jobs for women, reduce gender inequality, and also support economic growth. Research made by the UK Women’s Budget Group involving seven OECD countries showed that if two per cent of GDP were invested in the care industry, in this case social and childcare, employment would rise by an estimated 2.4 to 6.1 per cent.  Governments can fund these investments by imposing progressive taxes on corporations and rich individuals.