Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

Context

Gender equality is a fundamental human right. Guaranteeing this right is one way to

address some of the challenging issues and helps the attainment of social and economic

development that builds a sustainable future for all. Gender norms, stereotypes, and culture

greatly contribute to the inequality of treatment to each gender. Unequal distribution of work at

home socializes children into thinking that these responsibilities are the only role of women.

From an early age, boys may be socialized into gender roles intended to keep men in authority.

Providing each gender with an equal access to education, health care, work and political

representation will benefit everyone.

Gender equality according to Mikkola and Miles (2007) is demonstrated through the fair

access to opportunities and resources for any gender which is reflected on attitudes, beliefs,

behavior and policies. Every gender must have an equal chance in life and reach their full

potential through an equal opportunities, participation and involvement to the society. It is not

only about the equal access to the resources but also about the contribution, regardless of any

gender, to the community.

GLOBAL

Equality between men and women is a worldwide concern. Many organizations across

the globe is making an effort to promote a sustainable development that can be achieved by

protecting, respecting and fulfilling human rights such as gender equality. The Sustainable

Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 worldwide objectives set by the General

Assembly of the United Nations in 2015. Gender equality is one of the 17 goals that make up the

2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Even though there's a progress in gender equality

following the Millennium Development Goals, women continue to face gender-based

discrimination in many areas like health, education and political involvement.

LOCAL

The Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum evaluates 149 countries

about their progress in gender parity based on Economic Participation and Opportunity,

Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political Empowerment. The Philippines

ranked 8th out of the 149 countries for gender equality according to the Global Gender Gap

Report 2018 and ranked 2nd in the East Asia and the Pacific Region right behind New Zealand.
 Related Literature and Studies

According to Scott (2015), men and women experience differences in perception in the

workplace. An employee's gender can illustrate differences in perception related to

organizational structure, problem-solving style and view of work-related conflict. Also,

differences in individual working style are prominent. Women perceive that individual work

styles should be combined, where everyone works as part of a whole. Men, on the other hand,

recognize that work should be completed self - reliantly without the assistance of others. Women

also tend to be more supportive managers, whereas men are more direct.

According to Miles (2006), she suggested a technological explanation on household

specialization. Before the modern production technology households were practically self-

sufficient entities where the family patriarch ruled over the servants, the children and the wife. In

these independent household economies children served as a valuable input to production. These

technological reasons fertility was high and under the scarcity. Women specialized in the child

bearing and in the production activities at home where the children and the female production

activities could be taken care of simultaneously. Men specialized in the jobs that needed to be

taken care of outside the home.

The industrial revolution was the beginning of a complete change in the independence

and patriarchal household economy. Much of the domestic production became obsolete as many

items could be more efficiently produced in the specialized market place. As this development

progressed, children lost their value as direct inputs to production, fertility was lower, and

women lost much of their jobs at home. Children became consumption goods instead production

goods. They served the emotional needs rather than production needs. This changed the role of
women. Specialization within the independent household economy became specialization at the

market place, and the former gendered nature of specialization was no longer necessary. There

was a need for women’s roles in the economy to change. Miles sees these technological changes

as a cause for the feminism.

 Chapter II

EXPOSITION

Statistical Data

GLOBAL

Education

 Women make up more than two-thirds of the world's 796 million illiterate people.

 According to global statistics, just 39 percent of rural girls attend secondary school. This

is far fewer than rural boys (45 percent), urban girls (59 percent) and urban boys (60

percent).

 Every additional year of primary school increases girls' eventual wages by 10-20 percent.

It also encourages them to marry later and have fewer children, and leaves them less

vulnerable to violence.

 While progress has been made in reducing the gender gap in urban primary school

enrolment, data from 42 countries shows that rural girls are twice as likely as urban girls

to be out of school.

 In Pakistan a half-kilometer increase in the distance to school will decrease girls'

enrolment by 20 percent. In Egypt, Indonesia and several African countries, building

local schools in rural communities increased girls' enrolment.

 In Cambodia, 48 percent of rural women are illiterate compared to 14 percent of rural

men.

 Rural women's deficits in education have long-term implications for family well-being

and poverty reduction. Vast improvements have been seen in the mortality rates of
 children less than 5 years old since 1990, but rural rates are usually much higher than

urban ones.

 Data from 68 countries indicates that a woman's education is a key factor in determining

a child's survival.

 Children of mothers with no education in the Latin American and Caribbean region are

3.1 times more likely to die than those with mothers who have secondary or tertiary

education, and 1.6 more likely to die that those whose mothers have primary-level

education.

Employment

 In most countries, women in rural areas who work for wages are more likely than men to

hold seasonal, part-time and low-wage jobs. Women also receive lower wages for the

same work. (Source: FAO, 2011. “The State of Food and Agriculture: Women in

Agriculture, Closing the Gender Gap for Development.)

 Men's average wages are higher than women's in both rural and urban areas. Rural

women typically work longer hours than men, due to additional reproductive, domestic

and care responsibilities.

 In Benin and Tanzania, women work 17.4 and 14 hours more than men per week,

respectively.

Others

 A large gender gap remains in women's access to decision-making and leadership.

  Women make up fewer elected representatives in most rural councils. In Asia, this ranges

between 1.6 percent in Sri Lanka and 31 percent in Pakistan.

 Women's participation as chairs or heads in rural councils is also much lower than men's,

as seen in Bangladesh (0.2 percent) and Cambodia (7 percent).

 Educated women are more likely to have greater decision-making power within their

households.

 Between 1990 and 2008, the proportion of rural women receiving prenatal care at least

once during pregnancy grew from 55 to 66 percent.

 However, only one-third of rural women receive prenatal care compared to 50 percent in

developing regions as a whole.

LOCAL

Education

 Twice as many girls aged between 6 and 11 are out of school, the map showed only 1%

of girls in the Philippines were out of school. This is based on 2013 UIS data.

 In 2017, 26.3 million kids were enrolled in kindergarten, elementary, junior and senior

high schools in the public and private schools, state universities and colleges and local

universities and colleges.

 Enrollees in TVET courses reached 2.27 million in 2016. Females comprised 53.3% of

the total number of enrollees, while male enrollees comprised 46.9% of the total.

 The number of enrollees in HEIs in AY 2017-2018 reached 2.99 million. 55.6% of these

enrollees were females. 44.4% were males

  The number of graduates in HEIs in AY 2016-2017 was 703,327. 59.0% were females.

41% were males

Employment

 In the Philippines, women’s labor market participation is lower than men’s due to
inadequate employment and decent work opportunities, domestic labor and care

constraints, and social norms.

 Gendered social norms contribute to women’s greater responsibility for and time

commitments to domestic and care work, and this has been slow to change, despite

women’s increased participation in paid work.

 The number of women employees with precarious work increased from 23.9% to 24.7%

of all employees from 2000 to 2011; for men, the share of precarious work declined from

30.9% to 28.5% of all employees.

 Social security provisions generally have been available only to workers with formal

employment, and men have higher rates of formal employment than women, contributing

to the gender gap.

 The considerable sex segregation in education and training may also arise from social

norms about appropriate fields of study, and thus women may not acquire the necessary

training and qualifications for certain jobs.

Others

 In 1998, there were 17,512 government seats available. Of the 63,531 candidates who ran
that year, only 14.3% were women.
 In 2013, the percentage of women candidates rose to 17.82%. This means over 36,000
men gunned for seats, while only less than 8,000 women did.
 Chapter III

RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION

Recommendations

Many countries have achieved progress toward covering gender gap. However, the

importance of gender equality in the society is still undervalue, many women and girls face

discrimination because of the misunderstanding of the ideology of feminism, feminism is not

about giving advantages to women. Feminism is a freedom of choice, if she wanted to be a

politician she should be granted of the same opportunity as men. Gender biases are embedded in

culture it is very difficult to eliminate them without having a holistic view. The UN itself has

tried to provide equal rights to women globally and address gender inequality issues. It adopted

its international bill of rights for women in 1979. According to it, all member states have put

gender equality into their legal systems and to protect women from discrimination. However,

gender inequality is still common.

One way to address this issue is to empower mothers, empowering mother on the

community level will enhance girl’s education, when mothers are educated and empowered to

make decisions, they are able give their daughters images and role models that expand their

dreams, also to give proper value to women’s work, in developing countries male labor rates are

greater than female rates due to gender norms, if companies employed women on equal basis,

then the company will have a wider talent pool that will not only benefit the company but also

the society through economic gains.

Conclusions

Gender equality is a worldwide concern. Many people are working and trying to evaluate

a just and unbiased development concerning this issue. For us to have gender equality, we have

to make a well balanced and sustainable social development, men and women should have equal

rights, opportunities such as having access to education, health care services and equal job

opportunities.

At the end of the day, we are all humans wanting a kind and peaceful world. We all

deserve to live in this world without discrimination and hate. We are all equal in the eyes of God.

Of this, acceptance and respect is the key to have a harmonious relationship.

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