by Virginia Kapembeza
This is the final in a four part series on the UN fourth world conference on women being held in Beijing, China in September 1995.
The Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women seeks 10 lobby for social and ins1itu1ional changes to ensure that the role of women in the economy is not only recognized but supported. Another objective is to ensure that action prevails over rhetoric in extending more choices to working men and women including work schedules.
Aster Zauode, the regional adviser for the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) notes that women play a positive role in African economies looking after children and other household chores such as fetching water and firewood, growing and preparing food and being care-givers.
The issue of 1he economic contribution of women which in most cases goes unrecognized is also highlighted in 1he Human Development Report 1995 which says globally women work longer hours than men but remain unpaid and undervalued.
“There is an unwitting conspiracy on a global scale to undervalue women’s work and contributions to society,” says Mahbub ul Haq, principal author of the report.
The report states that if national statistics were accurately reflected, the myth 1ha1 men are the main breadwinners would be shattered.
The Beijing conference will highligh1 women’s access to employment; 1he improvement of women’s production capacities in the informal sector; entrepreneurship development; access to training, skills, technology and the means and benefits to production and markets.
Participation in the cash economy is still largely male-dominated. Women only make up an average of
30 percent of formal sector employees in southern Africa.
Most women in the region live in the rural areas and work on the land yet most are restricted in access to resources such as land, labour, capital, agricultural services and technology, and a share in the benefits of their labour.
In urban areas, women are predominantly in low-paid domestic and service jobs where they do not enjoy equal benefits of promotion, pension and pay with men. Consequently, the majority of women resort to 1he informal sector to supplement family incomes. Even in the informal sector women still face competition from men.
Income generated from 1his sector cannot easily be quan1ified and tends to be underes1imated.
The undervaluation of women’s work perpetuates their low status in many countries and infringes on their right to own property and acquire credit from financial institutions.
The Human Development Report uses two measures of human development, the Gender-related
Development Index (GDI) which highlights inequalities in access 10 basic health, education and income, and 1he Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM).
The latter focuses on national progress on the basis of the political and economic power of women. It refers to women’s political representation, access to managerial or professional opportunities, participation in the active labour force and share of national income. Clearly women remain economically unempowered, particularly in southern Africa.
In some countries, South Africa, for example, employment remains skewed on a racial and gender basis although the new government has improved access for women to formal employment.
In Angola, women comprise 20 percent of the total labour force. Although there is no descgrega1ed data on agriculture it is estimated there are more women farmers than men. In the informal market, sixty percent are women.
Even in Botswana, where the economy has remained relatively stable, women are conspicuously absent from executive positions and incomes are skewed in favour of men.
Lesotho is the only country in the region where women’s participa1ion in the labour force is much more visible than that of men. Although there is also a higher level of literacy and more employment opportunities, women are still outnumbered in decision-making positions.
Some countries in southern Africa are implementing economic structural adjustment programmes. Women are affec1ed differently by the reforms as responsibili1ies are increasingly left to them when men migrate in search of scarce employment. Their lower social and legal status is another reason as it restricts their access to education and credit.
The Human Development Report notes that: there is still no country that offers the same opportunities to both men and women; removing gender inequality is not dependent on national income; and omen the world over still have less likelihood of receiving credit from banking institutions than men.
The European Union delegation to Beijing says it seeks to remove the unequal sharing of responsibilities through partnership with governments. “A partnership which integrates the full and equal participation of women in civil, political, economic, social and cultural life, in order to secure equality, development and peace worldwide,” says Pandraig Flynn, an EU Commissioner.
This view is echoed by the Human Development Report which points out the fact that denying women full participation in economic and social development robs future generations of the opportunity to reach their full potential. James Gustave Speth, the director general of UN development Programme (UNDP) says “inves1ing in women and empowering them will contribute to economic growth and development”.
There has been some progress in southern Africa to improve the situation of women but much remains to be done. The report emphasizes that upholding equal rights should not be seen as an act of benevolence by those in power but should be done in the interest of progress.
Fully recognizing women’s economic contribution will change the entrenched socio-economic premises on which gender relations have been founded. (SARDC)
