5.5.
Qualitative and focus groups analysis
In this sub-section qualitative information from literature review, individual interviews with key informants and focus groups is analysed focusing on women and the youth. 5.5.1. Women Disadvantages of women in the labour and land markets Official statistics indicate that in the KR women are disadvantaged compared to men by the labour market dynamics. The level of economic activity of women is 52% versus 77% of men; the general rate of unemployment is respectively 9.5% and 7.7%, but the gap is wider in rural areas (7.1% versus 9.1%); and the salary of women is 74.3% of the salary of men on average (National Statistics Committee 2011, 2013 and 2014). Quoting from Kim (2014), among the rural poor, women tend to be more vulnerable to poverty and deprivation. In the KR, 53% of rural households which are headed by women are classified as poor, and 15% of them live in extreme poverty (Rural Poverty Portal, 2014, quoted in Kim 2014:6). In addition, even in rural families above the poverty level, women experience the double burden of housekeeping and raising children on the one hand, and participating in cattle breeding on the other. They also follow their whole family to remote pastures for summer herding, where childraising is affected by the lack of infrastructure. In general, women are constrained in the economic realm, including to work outside home, and tend to find “niche” opportunities for income generation (Kim op.cit.). Case-studies from the same report show that entrepreneurial activities by women are concentrated in small-scale agriculture, manufacture, service and trade, and that these activities can be successful (although implying an additional workload), provided that women involved learn adequate skills, including by participating in trainings by international organizations projects (ibid.). Successful entrepreneurial activities bring about both economic and social benefits to women, including a certain degree of empowerment and increased participation in public life (ibid.). Nevertheless, these successful stories are not the rule, and the role of women in local governments is “almost invisible” (Kim op. cit:8) – it is worth noting that at the time Kim´s study was conducted, only three out of eleven members of Suusamyr AO were women, and overall, women represented only 6% of members of pasture committees (ibid.). According to a study by UNECE (2010)28, due to gender discrimination women in the KR often also experience barriers to access legal ownership of land through ownership transfer or inheritance. Even when legal title of ownership is obtained, women may face difficulties in keeping it because of financial hardship, which is reinforced by further discrimination in access to credit and productive inputs (including knowledge of market-based farming practices and related technologies). Most of these findings have been confirmed in the present PSIA fieldwork, together with some opportunities for women advance in the political, social and economic sphere. Household division of labour and decision-making
Labor Children rearing
men Mean 40.94
women Mean 93.30
28 http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/hlm/documents/Publications/cp.kyrgyzstan.e.pdf