Seven Middle-Income Countries, 2020

because of cultural norms. For example, women might choose not to continue their education or to work because of the asymmetric household responsibilities assigned by traditional gender roles. Women might also be passed over for promotion or unfairly dismissed from work as a result of gender discrimination. For women to pursue career paths—either through long-term investments in education or through job experience and permanence—policy makers have a responsibility to define a gender-equal structure of work in terms of labor market and family policies.

REFORM LEGAL BARRIERS THAT REDUCE WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Vast legal constraints to equal employment must be addressed across occupations. Indeed, most of our case countries do not have laws to guarantee equal pay or equal access to certain occupations—and persistent gender wage gaps may reflect the impact of lacking such measures. Further, all our country cases except Cambodia either have laws that prohibit women from working in certain industries (ranging from manufacturing or mining to services) or lack antidiscrimination laws that would protect women in the workplace. Many countries impose legal restrictions on women’s entry, permanence, and mobility in the labor market (table 5.2).

Women, like men, should be given the choice to decide whether a job is appropriate, regardless of gender or parental status. When a country’s laws limit women’s ability to equally participate in the labor market, they broadly signal that country’s perception of gender equality and norms.

TABLE 5.2 Summary of Laws Limiting Gender-Based Employment Discrimination in Seven Middle-Income Countries, 2020

Country

Equal remuneration by law

Dismissing pregnant women is prohibited Discrimination in employment based on gender is prohibited Women can do the same night work as men

No mobility restrictions for women

Women can work in the same industrial jobs as men Bangladesh ☓ ☓ ☓ ✓ ✓ ☓ Cambodia ☓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Egypt, Arab Rep. ☓ ✓ ✓ ☓ ☓ ☓ pakistan ☓ ☓ ✓ ☓ ☓ ☓ Sri Lanka ☓ ✓ ☓ ☓ ✓ ☓ Turkey ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ☓ Vietnam ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ☓

Source: Elaboration from the world Bank’s women, Business and the Law 2020 database. Note: A checkmark designates the existence of the specified legal provision, and an X the lack of it.

Working schedules are also limiting in some countries, and there are no safeguards for job permanence for pregnant women. In Sri Lanka, laws prohibit women from working more than 9 hours per day or 48 hours in a week.1 Egyptian and Pakistani women could not work night shifts until recently, when such restrictions were lifted, but the reformed law imposes costs on employers (such as following certain security measures or obliging them to provide safe transportation during night shifts).

It is also important to identify barriers that inhibit female employment that may not be covered as part of legal requirements and to enforce sanctions for noncompliance. For example, a review of advertisements for top managers and supervisors in Vietnam found that 65 percent specified a male gender requirement (Chang, Rynhart, and Huynh 2016). Hiring solely based on gender might even be considered nondiscriminatory in some regulatory frameworks.

Moreover, governments must ensure that policies do not reinforce gender norms. For instance, maternity leave labels women as the primary caregiver and can direct women into jobs that offer time away from work and discourage employers from hiring women because of maternity leave costs. In our country cases, maternity leave ranges from 84 to 180 days, which means prolonged detachment from the workforce. If a woman has multiple children, this can result in detachment from the workforce for one or two years. Time away from work is necessary for a woman to have a child, and laws are necessary to protect a woman’s job while she is away. However, women may not want to take the full allotted amount of time away from work or may prefer to fulfill the same number of tasks in a shorter time or to work a reduced schedule (Das and Kotikula 2019).

Several alternative options exist. For instance, childbirth benefits can be separated into time away from work and a remuneration package to cover childbirth-related expenses. Providing time off to men and women is another option that signals equal roles for men and women regarding childcare responsiblities. Shifting the cost of maternity and paternity benefits from employers to social security systems spares employers from bearing a cost that applies to only one gender. Among our country cases, only Turkey and Vietnam cover the cost of leave after childbirth (and only for mothers).

Although the presence or absence of laws is not the same as enforcement (and a more in-depth analysis is warranted), there is a general alignment between FLFP and gender equality laws. Cambodia, Turkey, and Vietnam tend to have the fewest restrictions on women’s employment, whereas Bangladesh, Egypt, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka have the most. Thus, there is a pressing need for policy makers to take steps to remove these obstacles.

Governments have a role in coordinating far-reaching reforms that address multiple problems and engage different stakeholders. Such efforts can include reforming family laws, combating workplace harassment, banning discrimination in hiring and wages, and even strengthening trade policy. Not all policies addressing gender inequality in the labor market must deal with economic incentives or reforming laws. Trade reforms can have gendered effects that benefit certain female-dominated industries such as apparel.

For example, Indonesia’s tariff reductions resulted in the expansion of female-dominated industries, which in turn reduced employment segregation (Das and Kotikula 2019).

PROMOTE INCLUSIVE WORKPLACE PRACTICES

Workplace practices ranging from workspace configuration to interaction styles can either facilitate or deter women’s entry, stay, and advancements in their work. Thus, it is important to promote those practices that make industries and occupations welcoming to women.

Apparel factories are clustered in similar geographic areas or industrial zones, which offers an opportunity to create targeted programs. Given that few factories provide childcare facilities to workers or allowances for external childcare, governments could increase access to childcare facilities in geographic areas with high concentrations of female workers. In these areas, governments would also ideally ensure that there are sufficient secondary and tertiary schools and affordable housing opportunities to enable families to increase savings, which would in turn support the intergenerational pathway to careers.

In addition, governments can adopt reforms to address gender equity, whether in the apparel industry or the general labor market. For example, past reforms to address sexism at work in the Middle East and North Africa—a region supported by the work of national specialized councils to develop and support these reforms—made it one of the regions that has registered the most advancement on this issue, although much remains to be done (World Bank 2020).

Further, companies may need to make female employment a strategic priority and even shift to a female-dominated workforce to provide an environment that is acceptable to women without adding excessive costs. For example, men and women may prefer to work in separate areas of the factory; require separate restroom facilities and prayer rooms; and need benefits such as transportation, maternity leave, or childcare, which add extra costs to employers (JICA 2017).

Similarly, companies may need to address workplace harassment, which will require clear mechanisms (including predetermined consequences for the perpetrators and protection for whistleblowers). Harassment and fear of harassment are major workplace barriers for women throughout the economy (Das and Kotikula 2019). For example, harassment is associated with low job satisfaction, low productivity, absenteeism, and withdrawal. Further, fear of harassment can discourage women from joining maledominated industries or joining the labor market altogether.

ENGAGE FOREIGN SUPPORT AND INVOLVEMENT

The countries with low FLFP are also the ones with the highest levels of sexism (as discussed in chapter 3). In these countries, most firms are domestic rather than foreign owned, and research suggests that foreign-owned firms tend to employ more women (World Bank and WTO 2020). These findings suggest that a way to help overcome the