More women bring home bacon–study

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz. FILE PHOTO/Jay Morales/Malacañang Photo Bureau

MANILA, Philippines–More women are moving out of the home and into wage employment in the nonagricultural sector, according to the Department of Labor and Employment.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the trend showed women participation in wage employment had been slightly increasing, indicating that the traditional role of women as homemakers and child rearers was changing.

Citing a study by the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES), Baldoz said the percentage of women in the total number of wage and salary workers in the nonagricultural sector rose from 39.1 percent in 1997 to 42.0 percent in 2006 and 41.8 percent in 2011.

The share of women in wage employment in the nonagricultural sector is a Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Employment Indicator, according to Baldoz.

Independent decision-making

She explained that as an employment indicator, it measures the degree to which women have equal access to paid employment and, thus, their contribution to the monetary economy. It also indicates the provision of regular monetary income for women.

A high share of wage and salary employment may also indicate that they have greater independence in decision-making in their household and personal development, she added.

“The BLES study said that men, through the years, remained to have a higher employment share than women. Women’s share in total employment was highest in the 15-24-year-old bracket at 41. 8 percent as of 2011,” said Baldoz.

In the services sector, the proportion of women in wage employment ranged from 46.7 percent to 49.6 percent during the period 1995 to 2011, indicating that men and women were nearly equal in their participation in wage employment.

Improved women’s share

All regions of the country exhibited an improvement in women’s share in nonagricultural wage employment, the labor chief added.

In 2011, Region VII had the highest share of women in nonagricultural wage employment, with 44.9 percent. Except for Region XI (37.7 percent), and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (36.8 percent), all the other regions recorded women’s shares in nonagricultural wage employment of at least 40 percent.

According to the BLES study, around 25 percent of women who were wage and salary earners in the nonagricultural sector worked in private households from 2004 to 2011.

It also showed that women workers were commonly found in wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles, motorcycles, and personal and household goods (14.5 percent to 15.7 percent); manufacturing (12.7 percent  to 16.9 percent); education (12.5 percent to 13.1 percent), and public administration and defense, compulsory and social security ( 9.6 percent to 10. 8 percent).

The study also said the share of women in manufacturing declined because most women had shifted to the wholesale and retail trade and real estate, renting, and business activities.  The number of women workers remained constant in the rest of the nonagricultural industries.