The problem is not the solution?
The world bank has for a few years been promoting gender equality as an important component of economic growth (’smart economics’, see here for various docs). The author of this article, an economist and lawyer, also takes the same stance: that women need to work more, not less, in order to become empowered. Her main argument is thus:
But what UNICEF suggested as the solution for developing nations — that women be made responsible for the household and childrearing — is in fact the cause of the problem.
Indeed, the double dividend is a curse rather than a blessing, because it confines women to the home. Policy measures that cultivate traditional role patterns should be abolished. Instead, one must promote the economic empowerment of women to help generate economic growth.
The author gives a vague and watered down (doesn’t even mention the title of the book she’s referring to!) historical account of how capitalism flourished in the West and not Asia. Now, however, the story is different:
As the Economist pointed out last year, women have become the engine of global growth, especially in China and other Asian countries. The Asian economies seem to make much better use of the resources that women have to offer than Europeans do.
The ‘resources’ such as nimble fingers? And is it really the monolith of Asian economies taking advantage, or MNCs?
In Asia, more women work, they work more hours, and they advance on the corporate ladder much faster than European women. In the Philippines, 89 percent of companies have women in senior management positions. China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Taiwan and Singapore follow closely in terms of women in top jobs. Even in India, where more than half of girls and women are illiterate, more women hold senior management positions than in countries like Germany and the Netherlands.
I was very surprised to see this statement about India (see my recent post about the lack of women in management here)–but the argument does not hold when you look at percentages rather than sheer numbers: here less than seven per cent of senior management leaders here are women, and in Europe ‘occupy a mere 8.5 percent of corporate boardroom seats.’
Then the author goes on to deride European women for staying home or working part time, whining that if they just worked ‘a bit more outside the home and thus increase their contribution to the Dutch economy to, say, 35 percent, this would generate an additional 11 percent in GDP growth.’
The catch may be this: in Asia, working women can more easily rely on hired help with the household and caring duties, hence the reason that Filipinas have done so well in the corporate sphere. Yet, as Anita Ratnam at Ultra Violet tells us, the prevailing mindset in India is still very much stuck at ‘a woman’s place is in the home’.
