Taking strong proactive measures to get more women into productive, well-paid jobs, entrepreneurship and leadership positions will bring multiple and long-lasting economic and social benefits to developing Asia, said the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in an update of its flagship annual economic publication, Asian Development Outlook 2015.
In a special theme chapter, titled ‘Enabling Women, Energizing Asia’, the report notes that Asia’s economic boom has delivered many dividends to girls and women in areas such as literacy, life expectancy, and reduced female infant and child mortality rates.
But women’s participation in Asia’s workforce has actually fallen from 56 percent in 1990 to 49 percent in 2013 even as it increased in every other region of the world, it said, adding some of the fall can be attributed to rising incomes and women spending more time in school.
An unfair load of housework and child and elderly care, cultural biases, limited vocational training, and institutional and legal obstacles also act as barriers.
Large numbers of unskilled women with low levels of education are confined to informal, lowly paid, and often risky jobs, the report said and added that avenues for entrepreneurship are often blocked by legal restrictions on property rights for women and lack of access to finance.
