世界银行-孟加拉国妇女的经济赋权_更具包容性政策的循证工具包（英）-2025_162页_4mb

Summary of Women's Economic Empowerment in Bangladesh

Core Content

This report examines the current state of women's economic empowerment in Bangladesh, focusing on labor market participation, employment trends, and the constraints that limit women's economic opportunities. It presents an evidence-based toolkit to inform inclusive and equitable policies that support women's empowerment and sustainable development.

Main Points

1. Labor Force Participation and Earnings Gap

• Labor force participation: Women's participation in the labor force is significantly lower than men's. Using the ICLS 13 definition, 45% of women aged 15–64 are in the labor force, compared to 83% of men. Using the updated ICLS 19 definition, the gap widens further, with only 22% of women participating compared to 82% of men.
• Earnings gap: Women earn on average 41% less than men. Even after accounting for hours worked, women still earn 26% less. The gap is especially pronounced in the industrial sector, where women earn 38% less per hour than men.
• Hours worked: Women work significantly fewer hours than men (17 hours less per week on average), with a quarter working part-time (20 hours or less).
• Regional differences: Female labor force participation is higher in rural areas (50%) than in urban areas (25%), but rural women work fewer hours (29 hours vs. 41 hours for urban women).

2. Employment Patterns

• Sectoral distribution: Women are heavily concentrated in agriculture and the RMG sector, but they are less likely to own agricultural assets or move into higher-paying or higher-status positions.
• Self-employment: 64% of employed women are self-employed, compared to 49% of men. However, women's self-employment is often informal and home-based, and they tend to work fewer hours and earn less than men.
• RMG sector: The RMG sector is a major source of wage employment for young women, but it has shown a decline in female employment over time, with each successive birth cohort entering the sector at a younger age and exiting earlier. The sector also contracted in 2024 due to both global and domestic challenges.

3. Constraints on Economic Empowerment

• Education and employment: Wealthier women are more likely to be highly educated but less likely to be employed. This suggests that female employment is often driven by necessity rather than choice.
• Mobility and safety: Women face significant mobility constraints and safety concerns, particularly in public spaces and the workplace. These issues limit their ability to participate in the labor force.
• Financial inclusion: Women have limited access to formal financial services, with 57% lacking a bank or mobile money account. Conditional on having a loan, rural women are more likely to rely on formal sources like NGOs, while men borrow more frequently from informal networks.
• Asset ownership: Women own fewer assets, such as land and livestock, compared to men. This affects their ability to grow businesses and increase income.
• Childcare and home responsibilities: These are major constraints on women's ability to work, with many believing that men should have more access to scarce jobs. Childcare responsibilities are ranked as the second most important constraint by Bangladeshi experts.
• Gender norms: Traditional gender norms continue to restrict both the supply and demand for women's labor, affecting their employment opportunities and career advancement.

4. Policy Priorities and Evidence

• The report identifies nine key policy priorities that address constraints on women's economic empowerment.
• Skills and vocational training (TVET), financial inclusion, and migration have some evidence of effectiveness in Bangladesh.
• Transport, mobility, and safety, property and asset ownership, digital inclusion, and job search have limited evidence.
• Childcare and home responsibilities and business ownership and growth lack sufficient evidence in Bangladesh, despite their importance in the global context.

5. Recommendations and Policy Tools

• Skills and vocational training: Enhancing women's skills through TVET programs, with a focus on addressing mobility and confidence barriers, can improve employment and earnings.
• Transport and safety: Implementing safe transport systems, hot spot policing, and flexible working options can increase women's labor force participation.
• Financial inclusion: Expanding access to mobile money and digital financial services can improve women's control over resources and increase their economic participation.
• Changing norms: Interventions that challenge traditional gender norms, such as awareness campaigns and workshops targeting men, can help improve women's agency and economic opportunities.

Key Messages

• The gender gap in labor force participation is large and varies with the definition of employment.
• Women's earnings are significantly lower than men's, even after accounting for hours worked.
• Most female employment is driven by necessity, not choice, and is often in lower-paying, informal sectors.
• The RMG sector, while a major source of employment, has seen a decline in female participation over time.
• Mobility and safety concerns are major barriers to women's employment.
• Financial inclusion remains a challenge, with women having less access to formal financial systems.
• Gender norms continue to restrict women's labor supply and demand.
• Evidence on effective policy tools is growing in some areas but insufficient in others, particularly in Bangladesh.

Conclusion

The report highlights the need for targeted, evidence-based policies to address the constraints on women's economic empowerment in Bangladesh. It emphasizes the importance of improving access to education, financial resources, and safe mobility, while also addressing deep-rooted gender norms that limit women's opportunities. The toolkit provided is a guide for policymakers and practitioners to develop inclusive and equitable strategies that support women's economic empowerment.