The Challenge to Improve Living Conditions Of Women

Paper Prepared for Presentation on 8th March, 2007

Copenhagen Business School
A Preliminary Contribution to the Problem Paper on the Gross Problem of
Health and Population for Copenhagen Consensus 2008

Brinda Viswanathan#
Madras School of Ecnomics, Chennai (India)

March, 2007

Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank Kavi Kumar for useful discussions
while preparing this paper while the responsibility of any errors rest solely with the
author.
#
Contact email: brinda@mse.ac.in
 Challenge to Improve Living Conditions of Women

Women when compared to men have benefited less during the course of economic
development resulting in a lowered status of well-being for women within the house, in
the workplace and the community1. It is well established by now that the unequal status
between men and women is not due to their biological or physiological differences but a
social one connoted as gender inequality. Consequently, social reformers from time to
time have attempted to remedy the deeply entrenched notions in the society about
women’s position.
In order to alleviate the living condition of women in this broader context
financial resources are necessary but not sufficient and changes in social and cultural
attitudes play a very important role. The suggestions with positive outcomes on
improving women’s living condition are drawn from various country level experiences
wherein the use of economic instruments is fewer and the emphasis is more often on
creating social and legal institutions. Under these circumstances, it may not always be
possible to measure the costs and benefits of these initiatives in monetary units alone.
However, an attempt is made to illustrate the likely benefits to the countries when an
opportunity to reduce gender gap is put into practice given certain costs in implementing
it. Two opportunities are being mentioned here to improve upon the living conditions of
women:
(1) Reducing the gap between male and female education with emphasis on primary
education.
(2) Provide childcare facilities to enhance female labour force participation.

Opportunity I: Reduce the gap between male and female education

Gaps in education between males and females are rather glaring in many parts of
the world. Table 1 shows the gaps that exist between males and females at primary and
secondary school level observed among some of the very poor regions of the world. For
the least developed countries for every 100 male only 71 females are educated in the new
millennium while further region wise classification shows worse gap in South Asia (SA)
and West and Central Africa. The gap at the primary school net attendance ratio is less
than one but has improved in the past decade while much needs to be done at the

1
Boserup (1990) traces the status of women during the course of economic development indicates and how
in only a few instances women seem to have benefited while in most other situations their status continued
to remain subordinate to men.

1
secondary school level wherein the boys are disadvantaged as well
compared to their counterparts in other developed countries.
Table 1 Summary of Select Education Indicators across Regions of the World
Adult
Literacy
Rates a)
2000-2004 Net Attendance Ratio b): 1996-2005
Female as Primary School Secondary School
% of Male Male Female GPI c) Male Female GPI c)
Sub-Saharan Africa 76 63 59 0.94 21 20 0.95
Eastern and Southern
Africa 85 66 66 1.00 16 17 1.06
West and Central
Africa 63 59 52 0.88 26 22 0.85

Middle East and North

Africa 77 83 77 0.93 50 44 0.88

South Asia 64 81 75 0.93 54 48 0.89

East Asia and Pacific 92 .. .. .. 53 55 1.04

Latin America and

Caribbean 99 89 89 1.00 44 51 1.16
Central and Easter
Europe 97 91 89 0.98 .. .. ..

Developing countries 85 78 75 0.96 46 43 0.93

Least developed
countries 71 64 59 0.92 22 20 0.91
Notes: a) Adult Literacy Rate: Percentage of persons aged 15 and over who can read and write.
b) The net primary/ secondary school attendance ratio is defined as the percentage of children in
the age group that officially corresponds to primary/secondary schooling eligibility who attend
primary/secondary school or higher.
c) GPI: Gender Parity Index is calculated as the ratio of female enrolment ratio to male enrolment
ratio and are calculated by the author.
Source: UNICEF (2006).

More importantly, post secondary education or tertiary education reflects the level
of human capital formation resulting in higher returns to education thereby also to high
rates of economic growth. The poorer regions of the world form a very small share of
those enrolled for tertiary education and expectedly, university graduation ratios are the
highest in North America and Western Europe (NAWE) at 33.1% followed by Central
and Eastern Europe (CEE) at 29.3%, and some countries in the East Asia and Pacific
(EAP) region in 2004 (UIS, 2006). However, women from NAWE and EAP account for
30% each and in CEE about 18% indicating that gender gaps in regions with generally

2
higher educational attainment as well. Focussing on these countries one
further notices huge gaps in the type of tertiary education attained. As shown in Figure 1,
women are heavily enrolled among the non-science courses like education; social
sciences, business and law; and health and services which account for about 95% for the
total of all countries. The field of study at the tertiary education is driven by the
preferences in labour demand which in turn are influenced by the cultural and social
understanding about gender specific jobs.
Figure 1 Females as a percent of Total Tertiary Enrolment for each Broad Fields of
Tertiary Education, 2004 (%)
100

80

CEE
60

EAP
40

20 NAWE

0 Total
Engg, Manuf
programmes

Health &
Educn.

Hum & Arts

Services
Agriculture
Science

Welfare
Soc.Sc., Busi

& Constrn
& Law
All

Notes: 1) CEE: Central and Eastern Europe, EAP: East Asia and Pacific, NAWE: North America and
Western Europe.
2) The countries included within these regions are as per UNESCO (2006).
Source: Author’s calculations based on UIS (2006), Table 15: Enrolments by broad field of education in
tertiary education.

Education in itself has other spin-offs. For instance, in Zimbabwe among girls
aged 15–18 the secondary school dropouts reported six times higher HIV positive
instances compared to those enrolled in schools. In this case, secondary education
(supplemented with good school education programs) made them better equipped to
recognize the dangers involved in risky behavior and used refusal tactics effectively in
difficult sexual situations (UN Millennium Project, 2005).
It is well known that educated women are healthier, less likely to be exploited
sexually, participate effectively in household decisions as well as in public sphere, have
better access to employment opportunities and less likely to be discriminated in the
workplace. On the other hand as mothers they contribute to the well-being of the

3
household members in terms of improved nutrition and health status of
children and also in eliminating discrimination between girls and boys within the
household. These micro level benefits can further enhance macro level growth and reduce
inter-country inequality. Gender inequality in education accounts for a sizable portion of
the empirically observed growth differences between countries and regions (Blackden et
al, 2006 and Klasen and Lamanna, 2003). A higher level of human capital formation in
the society positively impacts economic performance as does a lower fertility rate among
educated women since it raises the per capita resources available. The evidence for this
lies in high growth performance among the East Asian economies and continued low
performance among several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (Klasen, 2005).
Based on these issues the following section illustrates the benefit cost ratio of
reducing gender gap keeping EAP as the benchmark which has successfully reduced the
gender gap at a very fast pace.

Benefit-Cost ratios for the reducing gender gap in Education: an Illustration

For the purpose of calculating the costs, the intervention costs from the
Bangladesh Food for Education (FFE) program are used (UN Millennium Project, 2005).
These estimates are for the year 2000 and the latest values available for such an
intervention. FFE in Bangladesh improved primary enrolment by 48% for girls compared
to 25% for boys. The annual cost per child is $36 for Bangladesh and the same figures are
used for South Asia and also for Sub-Saharan Africa due to lack of similar cost figures for
these regions as a whole. Total annual cost of intervention for the year 2000 is calculated
using existing Gender Parity Index (UIS, 2006), the number of girls in primary school age
(UIS, 2006) and the cost of intervention per child. For the benefits, the estimates of
additional GDP growth due to the reduction in gender gap for both South Asia and Sub-
Saharan Africa are used from Klasen and Lamanna (2003). The additional GDP growth
rates are with reference to the EAP region where the gender gap is much lower than that
observed in South Asia (SA) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Since the benefits are due to
interventions at primary level of education, two additional cost scenarios – with 50% and
100% cost escalations compared to the base value of $36- are also considered for benefit
cost calculations. These scenarios are assumed to capture the higher cost of intervention
required for secondary and tertiary levels of education.
The benefit of intervention in year 2000 is assumed to manifest after a gap of 15
years (when the child attains 20 years of age). Furthermore, the benefits are considered

4
for a 10 year and a 40 year stream in two separate scenarios. Three separate
discount rates – 3%, 6% and 10%- are used for calculating the present value of benefits.
Table 2 reports benefit-cost ratios for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Table 2 Benefit/Cost Ratios for Education Intervention for South Asia and Sub-
Saharan Africa, 2000

South Asia Sub Saharan Africa

Discount Rates 3% 6% 10% 3% 6% 10%
Cost/child/year
(USD)
Scenario 1: Benefits Accrue up to 10 years
36 80 46 23 68 39 19
54 54 31 15 45 26 13
72 40 23 12 34 20 10
Scenario 2: Benefits Accrue up to 40 years
36 218 95 37 183 80 31
54 145 63 24 122 53 21
72 109 47 18 92 40 15
Source: Author’s own calculations based on UN Millennium Project (2005) and Klasen and Lamanna
(2003)
The estimates of the benefit cost-ratios decline with discount rates and increase in
cost of education as expected. It also increases with the extent of benefit stream that is,
smaller period of accrual results in lower benefit-cost ratios. Since SSA has fewer number
of children this results in its lower cost but also the gender imparity is higher which
brings down the benefit. Further, the growth rate in SSA is not that strongly affected by
education variables and other variables have a larger weight which naturally brings down
the benefit of reducing the gender imparity, compared to SA.
The limitations of these calculations lie in several assumptions and can at best
serve as an illustration.

5
Opportunity II: Improve access and affordability to childcare facilities
to enhance higher rate of female labour force participation (FLFP).
On the one hand female education does result in better status and empowerment
but not all of it translates into her ability to make decisions and other facilitating
conditions are required. One of these is the choice to participate in the labour market. Not
all countries provide reliable data on labour force and wherever available, the data may
often not be comparable across regions. Across OECD countries there is wide variation in
FLFP rates (age 15-64 years) ranging from 27% in Turkey, 42% in Mexico to 76% each
in Denmark and Sweden and significantly lower gaps in male-female participation among
the high female participation rate countries (OECD, 2005). Similarly, Middle East and
South Asian countries are among the lower end while East Asian countries are with the
highest FLFP rates in Asia (UNHDR, 2005).
While it is acknowledged that higher education enables higher FLFP Lee and Cho
(2005) in a comparative study between Argentina and Republic of Korea show that higher
average years of education among the Korean women did not translate into higher work
participation rates (Lee and Cho, 2005). In Republic of Korea large proportion of pre-
school enrolment is in private schools and the overall pre-school enrolment is relatively
lower compared to Argentina (see Table 3 below). The authors infer that this is primarily
due to lack of child care facilities provide d by the state in Korea. This consequently
results in an M-shaped curve in FLFP rates for Korea across age groups with a dip in
participation observed at the age of 20-24 continuing up to 30-39 years while it is an
inverted U-shaped curved for Argentina.
Table 3 FLFP and Pre-school enrolment in Republic of Korea and Argentina
Republic of Korea Argentina
(1996-1998) (1991-1995)
Average level of 11.8 9.4
education (years)
FLFP rates for 47.0 54.1
elementary education and
under (%)
FLFP rates College and 65.0 87.7
higher education (%)
Pre-school enrolment 30.0 53.0
Ratio (%)
Private Schools’ share of 78.0 26.0
total enrolment (%)

Source: Lee and Cho (2005)

6
 That there are socio-cultural differences in FLFP is further
illustrated in the case of Switzerland which comprises of three cultural regions: French,
Germanic and Italian (Losa and Origoni, 2005). Married women with young children are
least likely to participate in the labour market compared to women in other status. Among
such women the French speaking regions show higher participation rates compared to the
Italian and German speaking regions. It is observed that an emphasis on the role of
women as homemaker in the Italian speaking region appears to influence the lower public
provision of child care facilities compared to the French speaking region.
Childcare provision enables women to not only join the labour market but also
reduces absenteeism, improves their chances of retaining the job, allowing them to opt for
full-time rather than part-time jobs (Gelbach (2002), Blau and Tekin (2003), Jaumotte
(2003), Lokshin and Fong (2006)). China has very high FLFP rates at about 80% in 2000
compared to the world total of about 60% which has been possible due to not just
universal child care policies but support in encouraging women to work and ensuring that
wage gap between male and female is minimised (Jiang et al, 2004).
Unlike the previous opportunity, this challenge concerns many developed nations
as well. While this policy is undergoing major restructuring to improve access,
affordability, awareness and quality of service in developed countries it is in the initial
phases among several developing nations. For this opportunity benefit cost ratios could
not be calculated due to inadequate information on intervention costs and potential
benefits. However an attempt has been made to present the available evidence on benefits
and costs separately.
Benefits:
+ Meyers, et al (2002) show that when the probability of subsidy receipt increases
from 0.0 to 0.5 in USA, the employment probability rises from 0.21 to 0.73
(controlling for other regressors).
+ Similarly, for USA Gelbach (2002) finds that the probability of receiving
assistance has positive effects on hours of work per week, weeks worked per year,
and wage-salary income.
+ A fall in child care cost help mothers (single or low-income in particular) to move
away from welfare dependence resulting in a sustained remuneration for the
household and thereby improving the well-being of the household members
(Jaumote, 2003).
+ Improving economic self-sufficiency and access to gainful employment and
reducing child poverty are among the reasons cited for introducing child care

7
 particularly for single mothers in USA (Adams, et. al, 2006) and UK
(Viitanen, 2005).
+ Countries with low fertility rates find that providing child care improves fertility
rate as in Italy (Del Boca, 2002) while higher subsidies in a progressive manner
are provided to families with more children in Sweden (Government of Sweden,
2000).
+ In developing countries, child care facilities also serve as protection measure for
problems like child labour, school drop outs, child prostitution, outreach for
medical and health program and female literacy (GOI, 2005).
+ Early child care in particular after two years seems to have beneficial impact on
child growth and development and hence policy interest is evinced in developing
countries.
Costs:
Childcare provision being part of social policy is either provided largely by state as in
Sweden where the parents share at most 20% of the cost or 1-3% of the total family
income (Government of Sweden, 2000). On the other hand countries like USA and UK
provide child care subsidy for the lower income families particularly for single mothers,
at a subsidized rate while others have to pay a much higher price. Given that efficiency in
targeting is low in several developing countries for most social policies and with limited
resources available for social spending a mix of private and public expenditure is the
likely option.
- Depending on the framework of political economy of the country the cost sharing
between the state and the household is rather disproportionate. The average cost of
child care in USA (market-oriented policies) in several states was higher to that of
public college tuition fee ranging between $2000-$4000 per year in 2002-2003.
Further the services were being underutilized due to such high costs. A case study
in Ohio showed that a reduction in co-payments as well as increasing the income
cut off to participate in the program had positive impacts on access (Honeck and
Lovell, 2004).
- Due to stricter regulations in supply of child care market arising out of quality
concerns excess demand for this service is noted in both UK, as the supply of
childcare did not respond to the demand (Chevalier and Viitanen, 2002) and
Germany (Wrohlich, 2004).
- On the other hand in USA many women did not participate in the subsidized child
care program due to lack of awareness about the scheme (Blau and Tekin, 2003).

8
 - The providers of child care are usually women from the informal
sector (as in Canada and USA). However, denying access to social security
benefits or an indexation of wages not only adversely affects such women but also
reduces the child care provision.
While it may not be feasible to calculate benefit cost ratios the benefits as stated above
could clearly outweigh the costs as the latter is significantly influenced by political will
and participation of the civil society.
Conclusion and Caveat:
It is to be noted that child care provision or spending more money effectively to
improve female education levels are two of the several intervention mechanisms that can
bring about much needed improvements in the living condition of women. As illustrated
even simple intervention like reducing the gender gap in education will have significant
benefits. However several other challenges such as: increasing incidence of sex
trafficking, domestic violence, poor attention towards improvement in reproductive health
care, clear demarcation in sex roles, substantially larger proportion of time spent on
leisure activities by men would need urgent changes in attitudes of both men and women,
even if quantitative cost benefit calculations are not feasible.
Even among several welfare states with consciousness towards reducing the
exclusion of women from the process of development, women with similar educational
attainment often experience discrimination in wage and fail to occupy important positions
in both politics and business, emphasising the deep rooted gender biases in the society.

9
References:
Adams, Gina, Robin Koralek, Karin Martinson, (2006), ‘Child Care
Subsidy and Leaving Welfare: Policy Issues and Strategies’, Study Report of the
Urban Institute, Washington D.C.,
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/311304_policy_issues.pdf.
Blackden, Mark, S. Canagarajah, S. Klasen and D. Lawson, (2006), ‘Gender and Growth
in Sub-Saharan Africa’, WIDER research paper.
http://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/conferences/2006-EOI-RPI/papers/gprg/Klasen.pdf
Blau, D and E. Tekin, (2003), ‘The Determinants And Consequences Of Child Care
Subsidies For Single Mothers’, NBER Working Paper No. 9665, Cambridge: MA.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w9665.
Boserup, E. (1990), ‘Economic Changes and the Role of Women’ in I. Tinker (ed.)
Persistent Inequalities, Oxford University Press: New York, pp.14-26.
Chevalier, Arnaud and Tarja K. Viitanen (2002), ‘The Causality Between Female Labour
Force Participation and The Availability of Childcare’, Applied Economics
Letters, 2002, 9, 915-918.
Gelbach, Jonah, (2002). “Public Schooling for Young Children and Maternal Labor
Supply,” American Economic Review 92 (1):307-322. (downloaded from JSTOR)
Honeck, Jon, and Vicky Lovell, (2004), Staying Employed: Trends in Medicaid, Child
Care, and Head Start in Ohio, IWPR Publication #B246, Washington D.C
Jaumotte, F. (2003), “Female labour force participation: past trends and main
determinants in OECD countries”, OECD Economics Department Working
Papers, No. 376.
http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2003doc.nsf/43bb6130e5e86e5fc12569fa005d004c/
b7c9b45202b081b1c1256e0000317f04/$FILE/JT00155820.PDF
Jiang, Lin, Erkang Gao, and Huang, Lujin, (2004), ‘The Situation of Female Employment
in China’, Working Paper of the Research Group of Shanghai Urban Women
Unemployment and Re-Employment Project, Employment Research Institute:
Napier .
http://www.napier.ac.uk/depts/eri/Downloads/ChinaWP1.pdf
Klasen S., (2005), ‘Pro Poor Growth and Gender: What can we learn from the Literature,
and the OPPG Case Studies?’, Final Draft of the Discussion Paper to the
Operationalizing Pro-Poor Growth (OPPG) Working Group of AFD, DFID, BMZ
(GTZ/KfW) and the World Bank.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPGI/Resources/342674-
1115051862644/GenderFinal22_04.pdf
Klasen S and F. Lamanna, (2003), ‘The Impact of Gender Inequality in Education and
Employment on Economic Growth in the Middle East and North Africa’,
University of Munich Working Paper.
http://www.iai.wiwi.uni-goettingen.de/klasen/klasenlamanna.pdf
Lee Kye Woo and Kisuk Cho (2005), ‘Female Labour Force Participation During
Economic Crises in Argentina and the Republic of Korea’, International Labour
Review, Vol. 144 (4), 423-449.
Lokshin, M and M. Fong, (2006), ‘Women’s Labour Force Participation and Child Care
in Romania’, Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 90–109.

10
Losa, Fabi B and Pau Origoni (2005), ‘The Socio-cultural Dimension of
Women’s Labour Force Participation Choices in Switzerland’,
International Labour Review, Vol. 144 (4), 473-494.
OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), 2005, ‘OECD
Employment Outlook: Statistical Annex’,
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/36/30/35024561.pdf
United Nations, (2005), ‘The Millennium Development Goals Report: 2005’,
www.un.org/millenniumgoals.
UIS (2006), ‘Comparing Global Education Statistics across the World’, Global Education
Digest: 2006, UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS): Montreal.
UNDP (United Nations Development Program), (2006), ‘Human Development Report
2006: Human Development Indicators’, http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/
UNICEF (2006), ‘Women and Children: The Double Dividend of Gender Equality’, State
of the World’s Children 2007, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF): New
York.
UN Millennium Project, (2005), ‘Taking Action: Achieving Gender Equality and
Empowering Women’, Task Force on Education and Gender Equality: New York.
http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/reports/tf_gender.htm
Viitanen Tarja K. (2002), ‘Cost of Childcare and Female Employment in the UK’,
Labour, 19 (Special Issue) 149–170.
Wrohlich, Katharina (2004), ‘The Excess Demand for Subsidized Child Care in
Germany’, IZA, Discussion Paper No. 1515 March 2005
http://opus.zbw-kiel.de/volltexte/2005/3274/pdf/dp1515.pdf

11