Economic Independence of Women in First and Third World Countries

Remember Urmila Bansal, sister-in-law of Badrinath Bansal from the Bollywood movie ‘Badrinath Ki Dulhania’? Yes, the accountant who was kept from doing the job she is good at because she was married off to a conservative family which still couldn’t catch the bus from 18th century to know that women cannot be restricted within the household!

Such instances do not work of fiction but snippets taken from real life and real situations around us. Whether you are born in a first or a third world country, if you are a girl, voilà! Your ambitions to work your way to economic independence are more likely to be doomed than the rest, though the way discrimination is faced may vary across oceans.

The ‘three worlds’ model of geopolitics first arose in the mid-20^th century during the Cold War. Today, the powerful economies of the West continue to be often referred to as ‘First World’, but the term ‘Second World’ has become largely obsolete following the demise of the Soviet Union and the advance of capitalism. ‘Third World’ remains the most common of the original designations, but its meaning has changed from non-aligned countries in Cold War politics and became more of a blanket term to denote the developing countries.

In the developed first world countries, though the economic independence of women is much more than those in third world developing countries, women all around the world suffer from gender pay gap, lack of social protection, family pressure, the patriarchal ideology of the society and other factors that act as roadblocks in their path of economic independence. World Economic Forum’s most recent Global Gender Gap report predicted that “ It will take another 108 years to reach gender parity at the current rate of progress, with the biggest gaps to close being in the economic and political empowerment dimensions” across the 106 countries covered since the first edition of the report, which will take 202 and 107 years to close respectively.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

Up until the 1960s women were merely seen as passive recipients capable of only household and reproductive work. Men all around the world were sceptical about working women, perhaps afraid that this would make them inferior to women. The gender roles assigned suppressed women from gaining economic freedom. The feminist movement, which rolled out in waves, with the first wave of 19^th and early 20^th century granting women political emancipation through civil liberties and the second wave of the 1960s calling for the liberty of women in the private sphere, led the way for women to increase their presence in almost all occupations in the Western world. Over the subsequent decades, U.S. women were reported to have higher labour participation rates than most other developed countries. However, this experience of economic liberation was different as intersectionality came into play. While the women of developed countries have more or less secured the agency to be employed and are now working towards making the playing field equal for all genders, women in developing countries still struggle at convincing the society that they are as capable as men to be employed.

Although the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights reaffirmed the commitment to equal rights of men and women in 1948, the progress towards equality between men and women has been minimal. Here, the disparities between developed and developing countries were stark. The 1995 Human Development Report indicated that 1.3 billion people were living in poverty, of whom almost half were in South Asia and 70 per cent of the poor were female. The number of women living in absolute poverty in South Asia has increased by 50 per cent in the last decade as opposed to 30 per cent for men (Carr, Chen, and Jhabvala, 1996:1)

The World Bank’s recent Women, Business and the Law Report measured gender discrimination in 187 countries and found that there are only 6 countries in the world- Belgium, Denmark, France, Latvia, Luxembourg, and Sweden -that gives women equal legal work rights as men. These countries scored full marks on eight indicators, from receiving a pension to freedom of movement, influencing economic decisions women make during their careers.

Gender differences in laws affect women in all regions. Both developing and developed economies are permeated by discrimination based on gender, with a typical economy reported to give women only three-quarters of the rights of men in the measured areas by the World Bank Report, 2018. Globally, over 2.7 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. Of 189 economies assessed in 2018, 104 economies still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 economies have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and in 18 economies, husbands can legally prevent their wives from working.

Women are more likely to be unemployed than men. In 2017, global unemployment rates for men and women stood at 5.5 per cent and 6.2 per cent respectively. This is projected to remain relatively unchanged through 2021.

The mainstream development policies treat women as second-class citizens and most development programs are still biased against women. This has further deteriorated women's position in many societies. Poverty among women has increased even within the richest countries, resulting in the "feminization of poverty" (Kabeer, 1999: 9).

Women’s development has received much attention in the Third World only in the last few decades. Developing countries have been witnessing a proliferation of policies, programs, and projects designed to aid women to attain economic independence. There are many national and international, governmental, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in formulating these policies but a wide range of confusion still exists concerning both the definition and use of different policy approaches. It is important to understand and examine the theoretical base for each of these policy approaches from a gender planning perspective.

Although patriarchal views and structures oppress women all over the world, there exists a class hierarchy even among the women and not all women share identical interests  as highlighted by works like ‘Can the Subaltern Speak’ by Gayatri Spivak, which pointed out how the voices of women in the periphery are often silenced. Thus, there is a need to understand the differential experiences of inequality amongst women and work accordingly. Organizing women’s groups at the grassroots level has been most effective for empowering women at the local level and for bottom-up development.

Empowering more women to work results in better growth of third-world economies as women's economic empowerment increases economic diversification, boosts productivity and income equality, resulting in other positive development outcomes. As IMF Working Paper 2016 showed, policies that improve access to educational opportunities and finance for women can contribute to a reduction in inequality and an increase in economic growth for the developing country. Providing women and girls with more educational opportunities contribute to: "reductions in fertility rates and increases in labour force participation rates, and in which thereby a better quality of the human capital of the future economy and generations."

Photo by Tope A. Asokere from Pexels

To conclude, while the experience of restrictions in attaining economic independence varies across countries, with women of third world countries combating the demons of the past in addition to the present, it can be argued that women all over the world have a long battle to wage to bring down the elements of society that continue to keep their economic independence in check.

A woman–in so far as she beholdeth

Her one Beloved's face;

A mother–with a great heart that enfoldeth

The children of the Race;

A body, free and strong, with that high beauty

That comes of perfect use, is built thereof;

A mind where Reason ruleth over Duty,

And Justice reigns with Love;

A self-poised, royal soul, brave, wise and tender,

No longer blind and dumb;

A Human Being, of an unknown splendour,

Is she who is to come!

 Poem by Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman

 

 

 

REFERENCES

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/women-are-the-key-to-economic-development-in-third-world-countries

https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/economic-empowerment/facts-and-figures

http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/women_and_development_in_the_third_world.pdf

http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/women_and_development_in_the_third_world.pdf

https://www.theglobalist.com/women-in-the-workforce-a-global-perspective/

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/she-who-is-to-come/

WRITTEN BY

BUND