GLOBAL MONITORING REPORT 2010
BOX 2.7
L E S S O N S F R O M PA S T C R I S E S
(continued)
The impact of labor market shocks is driven by several factors, of which gender is only one. Both quantitative and qualitative findings suggest that simple interpretations of labor market data may be misleading. As an example, well-publicized data show layoffs from enterprises producing garments and other products for export to shrinking markets, sectors where female employment tends to dominate. Less well-documented is the contraction in hours and earnings in sectors serving domestic markets, where purchasing power is closely linked to the health of the export sector. These sectors may be dominated by men. Women laid off from formal sector work may be better off than men facing highly restricted earnings in informal sector jobs. Quantitative and qualitative evidence from Cambodia suggests that more male workers in the construction sector have been affected by the crisis than female workers in the garment sector. Moreover, male construction workers are more likely to be poor and have fewer economic fallbacks than female garment workers. There is no consistent cross-country pattern in differences in hours of paid work by gender. In some countries, such as Cambodia, both men and women have greatly increased their hours of paid work. In other countries, such as Indonesia, women have overtaken men in hours of paid work in the past two years. And in other countries, such as the Philippines, men and women appear to work the same number of paid hours. However, focus group discussions suggest
that women’s total work burden (paid plus unpaid domestic work) has increased over the past year. In urban Thailand, women explain that their time on unpaid domestic work has declined a little but not enough to offset rising labor market hours. In rural Cambodia and the Philippines, research teams noted that an increased dependence on common property resources, including fi rewood, has increased women’s time on domestic chores. The welfare impacts of the crisis, by gender, also appear to be nuanced. Microsimulations of the poverty impacts of the crisis in Cambodia suggest that male-headed households were more affected in urban areas, while female-headed households were more affected in rural areas (see the fi gure below). For urban male-headed households, this finding likely reflects the impacts of the crisis on male jobs in construction and tourism. The effects for rural female-headed households appear to reflect the loss of remittance income in addition to more direct crisis impacts on household earnings. Findings from rapid assessments in rural Cambodia indicate that female-headed households commonly cut back consumption sharply and increased their indebtedness to cope with loss of income as remittances from urban areas fell. Male migrant workers—often migrant spouses—reported being unable to return home as often as before because of increased transportation costs and reduced earnings, meaning less male labor on the farm during peak periods.
Impacts of the global financial crisis on male- and female-headed households in Cambodia Poverty headcount 8 7.1
percentage point changes due to crisis impact
7 6 5
4.6
4.3
4
3.6
3.7
4.0
3 2 1 0
0.5
0.4
Phnom Penh
other urban male head of household
Source: Bruni and others forthcoming.
rural
Cambodia
female head of household
55