4 0
TO WA R D G E N D E R E Q UA L I T Y I N E A S T A S I A A N D T H E PAC I F I C
enrollment rate (%)
FIGURE 1.7 Minority populations in Vietnam often experience lower educational enrollments percentage of 15- to 17-year-olds enrolled in secondary school, by ethnicity, 2008
90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
Kinh/ Chinese
Tay
Central ethnic
majority
Hmong/ Dao
Khmer
minority male
female
Source: World Bank 2011a.
FIGURE 1.8 In Indonesia, gender gaps in enrollment do not vary substantially by household wealth
100
percentage of 13- to 15-year-olds enrolled in school, by sex and expenditure quintile, 2009
90 enrollment rate (%)
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
I
II
III IV expenditure quintile male
V
female
Source: World Bank estimates using Indonesia National Socioeconomic Survey 2009.
Macro 2006). Efforts that increase women’s safety and security and that reduce domestic violence can thus lead to lower intergenerational transmission of violence within families.5
Strengthening women’s voice can enhance the quality of development decision making Several studies have shown that women and men have different policy preferences (Edlund and Pande 2001; Lott and Kenny 1999). Capturing these gender-based differences in perspective can lead to not only more representative but also better decision making. Evidence from India indicates that private firms can benefit from greater gender equality among the ranks of senior management. Other evidence from South Asia s uggests the same is true with respect to development policy making. As an example, a study of women elected to local government in India found that female leadership positively affected the provision of public goods at the local level in ways that better reflected both women’s and men’s preferences (Chattopadhyay and Duflo 2004). Similarly, studies from rural India and Nepal found that when women who were previously excluded from decisions about local natural resource management had greater voice and influence, local conservation outcomes improved significantly (Agarwal 2010a, 2010b). Women’s collective agency can also be transformative, both for individuals and for society as a whole. For example, for a group of ethnic minority women in rural China, information sharing among them has helped empower them and raise their social standing in the Han-majority communities into which they married (Judd 2010). Migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong SAR, China, have been engaged in civic action focused on local migrant workers’ rights as well as international human rights over the last 15 years (Constable 2009). These efforts have contributed to the enactment of laws that now provide migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong SAR, China, with some of the most comprehensive legal protections in the world.
Recent progress, pending challenges Over the past few decades, many East Asian and Pacific countries have experienced