Female employment in Dhaka, Bangladesh: participation, perceptions and pressures

Abstract

As urbanization changes the face of poverty in Bangladesh, endemic insecurities within the urban environment force low-income households to deploy new strategies of labour mobilization that challenge traditional patriarchal ideologies, and in the process, gender dynamics. The research reveals the complex balance male household heads face in meeting economic and social priorities. While the majority of households depend on female labour mobilization as a short-term means of survival, this comes at the cost of displacing longer-term goals of household advancement, given that status, prestige and social networks are dependent on the ability to uphold patriarchal norms that forbid women from working. While most men hold on to patriarchal beliefs – viewing the mobilization of female labour as a “necessary evil” that dampens household honour and prestige and threatens masculinity – women are aware of the importance of their work and the centrality of their contributions to income. These opposing perspectives generate tensions within the household, leaving women to face a complex balance between managing the household, their jobs and the marital relationship. A wife’s labour is often viewed as a threat to male dominance and authority and can lead to various negative behaviours by the household head, including reducing working hours and income contributions or taking a second wife. A paradox is visible, in which men are aware of these negative tendencies but do not associate them with their own marital problems, instead blaming wives for their “disobedience”. This may be one reason for the persistence of patriarchal social norms that frown upon sending married women to work while, at the same time, it has become widely acceptable to send young, unmarried daughters, who do not offer the same challenge to authority, to work in Bangladesh’s thriving export-oriented garments sector.