Just as researchers have highlighted the phenomena of feminization in agriculture in Pakistan, there is a phenomenon of feminization underway informally in the textile sector of Pakistan. The feminization in textile sector is being driven by women home-based workers (HBWs) in the country in contrast to the formal feminization of the textile sector (specifically, garment industry) in India and Bangladesh, supported by massive foreign investment. Hopefully, down the road, informality may also be replaced by enlarged formal employment of female workers in the textile sector of Pakistan. Basically, this article will touch on two issues: a) What is the size and growth of this feminization in the recent past? For this purpose findings from a statistical report completed by this writer, comparing labour force survey (LFS) of 2013-14 and 2017-18 will be highlighted, and b) What is the dynamics or behavioral namely demand and supply, macro and micro aspects of this phenomenon?
Side-stepping the politicization of size of HBWs in the country by various researchers/organizations similar to politicization and cottage industry version of poverty estimates, the growth and numbers of population weighted HBWs are based on above nationally represented LFS sample surveys. Overall, female HBWs increased from 2.67 to 3.59 million, i.e.,by more than 1/3rd (growth rate of 34.5 percent) during the 4 years. Men HBWs in contrast, declined from 0.92 to 0.79 million a decrease of 14.1 percent. Women HBWs employment in the manufacturing sector, increased from 0.52 to 1.77 million. This increase (1.25 million) not only compensated or replaced the fall in women HBWs in agriculture from 1.99 to 1.58 million, a decrease of 0.41 million, but added another 0.84 million of women HBWs to the manufacturing sector during the 4 years.
The phenomenon of feminization of the textile sector within manufacturing sector can be judged from the following analysis:
Overall women employment share in textile sector increased from 36.9 percent in 2013-14 to 40.4 percent in 2017-18. Although, apparently, it is a small increase but it implies an annual increase of nearly 1 percentage point. Few startling numbers are: In 2013-14, women HBWs in the textile sector just constituted 15.6 percent of total women HBWs. In 2017-18, this share shot to 45.0 percent of the total women HBWs, an almost three-fold increase. Another interesting comparison is that during the period, while women (HBWs+Non-HBWs) employment in the textile sector went up from 1.28 to 1.76 million, a growth rate of 37.1 percent, employment of women HBWs in textile sector went up from 0.41 to 1.61 million, a growth rate of 288.0 percent. It pushed up the share of women HBWs in the textile sector from 32.5 percent in 2013-14 to 91.9 percent in 2017-18. Thus nearly, most of the addition in women HBWs employment in manufacturing occurred in the textile sector.
In Bangladesh, the women's HBWs share in textile sector within total women HBWs in 2016/17 ranged from 21.1 percent (Urban) to 35.1 percent (Rural). In India, women HBW share in Wearing Apparel plus textiles within total women HBWs increased from 22.6 percent in 2011-12 to 27.4 percent in 2017-18. Women HBWs also constituted nearly 70 percent of all women employment in 2017-18 in the above two sectors. The fillip side of this finding is that formalization of women employment in textile sector of BD and India may be much higher than in Pakistan.
Given that overwhelming employment of women in textile sector is home-based, the next indicator of interest is their status in employment. Are they mostly independent or dependent? Within dependent category are they full-time employees or piece-rate workers? The findings on these questions have implications for decent work agenda (DWA) and Convention 177 of the ILO. In 2017-18, 41.0 and 59.0 percent of women HBWs are independent (own-account workers) and dependent respectively, with a larger percentage of the former in urban areas and vice versa in the rural areas for the latter category. Piece rate and contributing family HBWs constitute 17.6 and 37.9 percent of total women HBWs. Most of the latter group belongs to the agriculture sector. Women HBWs employed as piece rate workers are 35.3 percent of the total women HBWs in the textile sector. However among all piece rate HB workers in the textile sector, women constitute 84.5 percent. Ideally, remuneration data would have been a more appropriate metric for assessing relevant DWA objectives and Convention 177 clauses, but large non-response precludes such findings.
Coming to the second issue mentioned at the start of the article, the anatomy of dynamics of speedup in the observed feminization has many dimensions. One can only speculate stylistically on few of them, at the same time suggesting that in-depth sectoral data is needed to dissect and identify the causality empirically: i) Increased expected drive towards documentation of the formal textile sector may have induced entrepreneurs to informalize (defined as under 10 employees) few strings of supply chain and avoid tax liabilities and labour department authorities to maintain or even enhance their documented/undocumented profits, ii) However to give benefit of doubt, low profit margins specifically in textiles under international competition may have also compelled manufacturers to informalize the supply chain to save on costs, iii) The increased demand for custom based variety and quantity of final hand-made products e.g., event fashion garments (bridal and engagement dresses) and decorative cloth-based products with increasing domestic and foreign incomes may also have led to increased employment of specialized skill women HBWs.
The army of specialized retail clothing stores and boutiques is the main contractors of this group of HBWs. Since these specialized products are in demand in limited quantities (due to huge variety and frequent fashion cycles) they cannot be subject to scale economies and therefore are best suited for small sized specialized production units. The overwhelming piece rate basis for remuneration to women HBWs in textile sector is a monitoring device for quality as well productivity of specialized and handmade products and hopefully not for wage discrimination, iv) the transformation in socio-cultural values along with economic pressures also played a major role in the formalization of women in the garment industry of BD and India. This type of transformation is slower in Pakistan but increasing willingness of male respondents to record household women as HBW is encouraging. In future there is a possibility that women may be gradually allowed to venture out from homes (specifically in rural areas) to join formal sector jobs.
From a policy perspective, there is a trade-off between quantity versus quality of employment in encouraging HBW category of women labour participation rate. At a macro level, in quantitative terms, higher informal employment of women is a welcome indicator, but it comes at the cost of adding another layer in documentation of the textile sector including its wholesale and retail chains. It slows the efforts to rapidly broad-base the tax system through technology, specifically the sales tax regime. The quality of employment of HBWs revolves around the 4 deficits confronted by the HBW community. These are Rights, Representation, Growth and Social Protection. Unfortunately, attempts at reducing these deficits have moved at a snail's place in the country during the last twenty years.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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