46 research outputs found
Increasing Voice And Influence In The Health Sector In Rural Bangladesh: Is There A Role For Comm...
The under reporting of women's economic activity in Bangladesh : an examination of official statistics
In Bangladesh women are engaged in a variety of economic activities ranging
from homestead based expenditure saving activities to outside paid work.
However, women's work always remains under reported, especially women’s
non‐market homestead based economic activities. Under reporting is particularly
critical in the case of official statistics. The types of work women are involved in
are often overlooked by women themselves. Non recognition of women's
economic activity not only leads to undervaluation of women's economic
contribution but also contributes to their lower status in society relative to men.
This paper intends to explore why official statistics fail to enumerate the entirety
of women's economic activity in Bangladesh. To do this, we used different
definitions of economic activity (work) used by the Bangladesh Bureau of
Statistics (BBS) to estimate women’s LFPR for women aged 15 and above in 69
villages of eight districts of Bangladesh.
The study finds that the female LFPR ranges between 4% and 16 % in the eight
districts when economic activity is defined in the narrowest sense, i.e. outside
paid work in last 12 months. These rates become considerably higher (increases
by 3‐16 folds) if market work inside the home is taken into account along with the
paid work. If we further extend our definition to include women's expenditure
saving activities in last 12 months, the rates rise further ranging from 55% to 82%
in the eight districts. The paper argues that widely held beliefs regarding women’s
work contribute to the under reporting of women’s economic activity by official
statistics, in addition to data collection constraints in the field like inadequate
time and work burden of investigators.Simeen MahmudSakiba Tasnee
Civil Society, Health, and Social Exclusion in Bangladesh
Civil society has the potential to have a positive impact on social exclusion and health equity through active monitoring and increased accountability. This paper examines the role of civil society in Bangladesh to understand why this potential has not been realized. Looking at two models of civil society action—participation in decentralized public-sector service provision and academic think-tank data analysis—this analysis examines the barriers to positive civil society input into public policy decision-making. The role of non-governmental organizations, political, cultural and economic factors, and the influence of foreign bilateral and multilateral donors are considered. The paper concludes that, with a few exceptions, civil society in Bangladesh replicates the structural inequalities of society at large