ECONOMYNEXT – Solely 7.7 p.c of working-age ladies have a proper job with respectable wages and respectable working hours, in accordance with the Institute of Coverage Research (IPS). It notes that home and care tasks and restricted job availability exacerbate poor working circumstances in Sri Lanka. labor participation of girls.
“First rate work is multi-faceted and consists of productive work that gives a good earnings in circumstances of freedom, equality, safety and human dignity (ILO, 1999). As a result of heavier home and care tasks positioned on ladies, they face challenges in taking part within the labor market and securing respectable work,” the IPS stated on Monday, November 6, in a press release written by researchers Kimuthu Kiringoda and Himani Vithanage.
Noting that the labor market in Sri Lanka is characterised by a number of gender-specific challenges, IPS Analysis Director Nisha Arunatilake stated employers take into consideration ladies’s extra home and care tasks when hiring staff, which impacts the demand for feminine staff. Sri Lankan legislation additionally imposes greater prices on employers when hiring ladies, together with maternity go away and extra safety prices. Even when ladies are recruited, Arunatilake says, they face limitations and drawbacks when it comes to alternatives for promotions and profession development as a consequence of their home duties.
A separate survey by Sri Lanka’s Girls and Media Collective present in July 2023 that 54.7 p.c of feminine respondents had stated they might not get a job as a result of there was nobody to take care of their youngsters, whereas one other 11.9 p.c stated there was nobody to work. maintain their mother and father.
Surprisingly, no man gave the 2 explanation why he was not in paid work.
Associated:
Girls in Sri Lanka have been unable to interact in paid work as a consequence of childcare and home work
Based on the IPS, one other main drawback in Sri Lanka is the restricted availability of respectable jobs, particularly outdoors the Western Province.
As Arunatilake famous, “about 30 p.c of jobs in these areas are within the agricultural sector,” which consists primarily of susceptible, low-income jobs. This, she stated, mixed with employers’ desire for recruiting males, additional limits ladies’s entry to respectable work.
A latest IPS survey discovered that solely 8 p.c of Sri Lanka’s workforce is formally employed with respectable wages and dealing hours. For ladies the proportion is 7.7 p.c, decrease than the male proportion of 8.3 p.c. The examine additionally highlighted that entry to respectable work improves when ladies can learn English and have greater ranges of schooling. Moreover, households with male members in formal work improve ladies’s alternatives to seek out respectable work. Sadly, the presence of school-age youngsters reduces their possibilities of respectable work, as ladies bear larger duty for his or her youngsters’s schooling, the IPS stated in its assertion.
The IPS additional stated that outdated labor legal guidelines nonetheless include provisions that discriminate towards ladies. The shortage of feminine illustration on decision-making committees compounds the challenges ladies face in looking for respectable work.
At a convention organized by the IPS in collaboration with the Partnership for Financial Coverage (PEP) and Co-Impression, which hosted the Nationwide Coverage Convention on Girls’s Entry to First rate Work in Sri Lanka on October 31, policymakers and key stakeholders mentioned methods to enhance ladies’s entry to respectable work. respectable work, emphasizing the significance of making respectable jobs for ladies and the function of childcare amenities in enhancing ladies’s entry to respectable work.
Industrial Service Bureau Govt Director Neelakanth Wanninayake stated on the convention {that a} majority of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Sri Lanka are battling problems with poor high quality consciousness, low productiveness, restricted innovation and diversification. A few of the main obstacles to industrialization, together with coverage points, lack of entry to finance and credit score, inefficient infrastructure, lack of innovation and expertise switch and poor entrepreneurial tradition, have to be addressed to generate respectable employment alternatives within the nation, she stated. .
The occasion mentioned reworking precarious jobs into respectable jobs, along with creating respectable jobs. As entry to respectable work varies considerably at regional stage, emphasis was additionally positioned on implementing insurance policies at regional stage.
Based on the IPS, gender segregation within the labor market in Sri Lanka is one other persistent drawback, with ladies typically confined to sure kinds of occupations, reminiscent of instructing and low-skilled jobs within the service sector. First Vice President of the Girls’s Chamber of Business and Commerce (WCIC), Gayani Herath de Alwiss, stated that within the transport and logistics sector in Sri Lanka, feminine illustration is barely 3.4%, in comparison with 96.6% of male illustration . A significant contributing issue is the restricted consciousness of employment prospects inside particular sectors that supply respectable jobs, De Alwis stated, noting the significance of elevating consciousness to draw ladies to respectable jobs and to make sure their retention into the workforce as quickly as they enter.
Gender and Financial Inclusion Program Supervisor, Worldwide Finance Company Sri Lanka (IFC) Aarthy Arunasalam, who additionally spoke on the occasion, emphasised the significance of robust male advocates to assist ladies’s involvement in respectable work and entry to monetary and non-financial companies promote. and strengthening provide chain connections, whereas integrating ladies throughout the worth chain, are among the key factors highlighted.
Normal Supervisor Girls’s Empowerment, Advocacy and Code of Conduct at MAS Holdings Thanuja Jayawardene, in the meantime, highlighted the challenges the non-public sector faces in implementing childcare insurance policies within the absence of a coherent nationwide coverage.
Based on the assertion, all panelists on the convention agreed that it’s a social duty to guard youngsters and guarantee their wholesome growth of their early years. Jayawardene famous that two points concerning office crèches are the associated fee to the corporate and the completely different calls for of various kinds of staff. Within the attire sector, she says, the manufacturing facility ground and workplace employees have completely different calls for and shifts. Nonetheless, it was reiterated that the ostensible sector was constructed on the spine of girls who ought to be given in depth care and a spotlight, the IPS assertion stated.
Parental duty and parental care have been additionally mentioned.
“All consultants agreed that the duty for elevating the kid ought to shift from the mom to each mother and father, reaffirming the necessity for paternity go away provisions. Taking steps to cut back crimes towards youngsters was additionally mentioned by Sri Lanka Girls’s Heart Undertaking Supervisor Gayani Gomes, citing examples from the Free Commerce Zones.
“Director (Planning and Data), Shanika Malalgoda, within the dialogue, highlighted the Nationwide Tips for Daycare Facilities as a superb instrument to take care of requirements of care, together with the five-year motion plan launched by the Ministry of Girls Affairs. Arguments have been put ahead by the general public towards the coverage, stating that too many companies are concerned, which makes implementation advanced. Malalgoda stated they can’t keep away from multi-sectoral involvement and are working with restricted sources inside the ministry,” the IPS stated. (Colombo/06 November 2023)
