Dhaka: While Bangladesh has achieved impressive gains in women’s status and gender equality, access to reproductive health services, labour markets, physical security and role in decision-making need urgent attention.

A World Bank report ‘Whispers to Voices: Gender and Social Transformation in Bangladesh’ documented changes in norms, attitudes and practices related to gender equality based on national surveys and field work, and is a comprehensive analysis of key development outcomes.

The report also addressed important regional variations with a focus on Sylhet and concluded that there has been a far-reaching change in gender norms in Bangladesh, which has pervaded not only outcomes but also attitudes.

It attributed this change to constructive policies and programmes of the Bangladesh government that spurred much of the progress in gender equality.

According to the report, in much of the country today, girls’ secondary school enrolment exceeds that of boys and the gender gap in infant mortality has been closed.

It further said that the micro-credit revolution continues to boost women’s solidarity groups and earning potential, and vast numbers of young women are leaving their villages to work in garment factories where, in earlier generations, young women were rarely seen outside their homes.

“Taking huge strides in women’s progress, Bangladesh now needs to address remaining issues and second generation issues, including employment outside of agriculture, extending education to all sections, strengthening the demand and supply of reproductive health services and providing for women’s safety,” the World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh Xian Zhu said.

The report said that while gender inequalities in children’s health have diminished, women in the country still lack adequate access to reproductive health services.

“Almost 90 per cent of Bangladeshi women give birth at home, and over 86 per cent do not have a skilled birth attendant to assist,” the World Bank report revealed.

It further added that the reasons for not seeking care during pregnancy and child birth are primarily related to low appreciation of women’s needs during this period.

In addition to changes in methods for delivering care, the report called for increased efforts to use information, education and communication to raise the demand for health services among women.

“Bangladesh’s success in girls’ education is now well-known. A new reality in education is emerging—boys are at risk of being left behind and this could potentially have serious impacts on social and familial cohesion,” the report revealed.

It further stated that already there is evidence of educational hypogamy with a larger proportion of younger women compared to the older generation marrying men less educated than them.

There are also serious gaps in educational attainment between the rich and the poor and quality of schooling is an issue of concern.

Poor children of either gender can rarely stay in school through to the upper grades. By Grade 9, when nearly 100 per cent of children from rich families are enrolled, less than 20 per cent of children from the poorest households are still in school.

According to the report, this gap in enrolment by poverty status at the lower secondary levels will be important to bridge for not only reasons of equity, but also for reasons of productivity.

It further said that education is also changing relations between girls, their families and their elders; the acceptance of and demand for equal education for boys and girls has pervaded regions and generations.

Stressing on that continued focus on education will be critical to address new and remaining challenges, the report’s Lead Author Maitreyi Bordia Das said that education enhances both women’s entry into the labour market and their wages.

She said that educated women seek maternal health services more than uneducated women, and in the arena of decision-making, it is found that educated women are consulted more frequently.

The report emphasises that despite increasing education and declining fertility, women’s labour force participation rates are very low although they have doubled in the last 10 years.

According to the report, women’s employment in South Asia is among the lowest in the world and Bangladesh is at the lower end of the South Asian spectrum.

Less than one fourth of men and four per cent of women of prime working age work for a cash wage in Bangladesh.

The report said that women are also less likely than men to be self-employed in non-farm activities, and in fact, women’s participation in rural non-agricultural work has declined and unpaid work seems to have increased.

It further added that in the casual agricultural labour market, women earn about 60-65 per cent of men’s wages and 81.5 per cent of the difference between men’s and women’s agricultural wages is unexplained and could be due to labour market discrimination.

Zhu pointed out that if Bangladesh does not give these young women opportunities outside the home, the country can expect some dejection and some impact on social cohesion.

“Therefore, I would like to reiterate the importance of women’s employment as a core growth issue and not just a poverty alleviation one,” he said.

Despite the formidable women’s groups in rural areas, most women’s influence over decision-making is confined to household functioning.

The report said that the difference in decision-making power between younger and older women is small, suggesting little change over time, while low access to land and property is an important part of their low voice in decision-making.

It further stated that less than 10 per cent of all women and less than three per cent of younger women (aged 15-25) have their names on marital property papers like rental agreement or title to land or a homestead.

The reservation of seats for women in Union Parishads has definitely enhanced their visibility and decision-making at the community level but still more needs to be done to give them equal responsibilities and resources.

The report also found that there has indeed been an increase in dowry over the last 30 years in Bangladesh.

In the arena of violence and public security too, it found that Bangladeshi women tend to condone spousal violence for minor infractions and men are more likely to admit to violence than women are to report it.

The report emphasised that public security for women will be an important factor in their ability to access new opportunities.

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