Theoretical framework
Drs Mahabub Hossain and Manik Lal Bose talked on: "Nature and impact of women's participation in economic activities in rural Bangladesh: Insights from household survey". This is mostly an empirical paper drawn from a household surveys carried out in 1987 and 2000. Paging through the paper, one could glean the dynamics over a period of time.

To start with, the authors invoked the theoretical underpinnings of the issues under consideration. Marxists have distinguished between productive and reproductive labor, economists have conceptualised the difference between market production and subsistence production and between wage and non-wage labour, and sociologists have drawn the curtain between work at home and outside home. Neoclassical economic tradition emphasised the activities undertaken for the market and on that count alone, women's activities outside labour market failed to find a berth in economist's accounting of national income. However, in 1960s, the human capital theorists developed a 'New Household Economics' to impute the value of time spent in household activities. The analyses were used to dig out the male/female division of labour, and members' behaviour in the market. In the 1970s and 1980s, these concepts were applied to further study of labour market from the angle of discrimination and bargaining power of different household members, to understand the dimensions of power and conflict in decision making. The above discourse and debate contributed to recognise the role of women's work in the productive and social sectors. Of late, however, empiricism entered into the discourse that still is plagued with controversies and complexities regarding the nature of work and the functional distribution.

Backward bending supply curve!
The authors observed that total labour hours (average/day) in all kinds of activities, both for males and females, declined between 1987 and 2000. For example, in 1987, adult population of rural areas used to devote 8.55 hours/day compared to 8.07 hours/day in 2000. Most importantly, hours devoted to economic activities -- that tend to fetch economic fortunes-declined from 7.57 hours/day to 6.73 hours/day for males and from 1.86 to 1.79 hours for females during the same period of time. Noticeably women in rural areas put in only one-sixth of the time that males do in economic activities. On the other hand, males devote les than one-sixth of the time that women put in for domestic activities.

The authors are of the view that the decline in labour time during 1987-2000 period by both men and women could be a sign of positive impact of the improvement in economic conditions on leisure. En passant, the incidence of poverty in the sample households declined from 59 per cent in 1987 to 43 per cent in 2000. The findings seem to accept the hypothesis put forward by Pranab K. Bardhan and M.R. Rowsenzweg long time back: people work harder during subsistence pressure but withdraw some labour when conditions improve (both the seminal works appeared in the American Economic Review and during almost the same time, 1978 and 1979). "The substantial reduction in labour supply by women may partly be due to the replacement of the traditional back-breaking homestead-based processing technologies (such as rice milling by dheki and pit looms) by relatively advanced commercial technologies (such as rice huller and the semi-automated looms) and improvement in the quality of housing that requires less time for cleanliness".

But not beyond home
The authors observed that women's role have been revolving round homestead-based activities. Only 23 per cent of the total labour for women was on account of economic activities compared to 83 per cent for men. There is another difference between men and women. Men have reduced their labour supply to agriculture by one-third during the period under consideration while increased labor supply to non-agriculture by 42 per cent. Just the reverse has happened in the case of women who have withdrawn some labour from non-agriculture but put in more in agricultural activities. We can presume these women could have come from tenant households. During 1987-2000, women have increased their labour supply to poultry raising, homestead gardening and non-farm services but reduced labour on crop production, animal husbandry and cottage industries.

It appears that the most significant factor influencing women's participation in economic activities is the wage rate. A tight labour market fueling wage rate could possibly attract women to economic jobs. The development of infrastructure, especially of electricity, seems to emerge as the second important variable affecting women's participation in economic activities. And also, association with NGOs could affect women's participation in economic activities. Interestingly, Hossain and Manik observed that religion does not significantly affect women's participation while admitting that it is an unexpected result in the context of Bangladesh.

Disdainful discrimination
There is considerable disparity in wage earnings between men and women. In 2000, women received, on average, USD 1.07/day compared to USD 1.39/day for men-i.e. about 30 per cent less. In agricultural activities, the disparity is observed to be more pronounced with women bagging wages which is 42 per cent lower than men and in non-agricultural pursuits, it was 24 per cent lower. Of course, the educational level of the household heads matters in the disparity. Researches have shown that in rural Bangladesh the male-female wage disparity tends to be lower for households with their heads having some education.

Empowerment denied?
Does participation in economic activities imply more empowerment for women? The authors measured empowerment index on the basis of decision making with regard to a number of variables and analysed the association with women's economic participation. The value of the index was observed to be low and its association with economic activities weak. But even then, women's economic involvement influences empowerment positively in the agricultural sector but negatively in the non-agricultural sector.

My recent visits in rural areas gave me the impression that women of poor and tenant families are relatively more empowered as far as agricultural activities are concerned. Of course, this could be due to the training on agricultural practices imparted by the Poverty Elimination Through Rice Research Project (PETRRA) on a number of grounds e.g. crop management practices, seed health etc. Trained women tend to convey the knowledge to their husbands who, again, rely on them for the outputs in the fields. Thus training to women could be an important means of raising empowerment.

Million dollar question
Any way, more important factors affecting the index is women's age, land ownership and land tenure system, and the level of education. Findings of the study indicate that women are very seldom given the opportunities to express their ideas for execution, which is reflected by the low empowerment indexes. As a result, women's economic and social values are not reflected in the household decision making and leadership….Therefore, the basic questions remain on: "why women's empowerment and their participation in economic activities is very low despite relentless efforts made by government, NGOs and donors? Somehow there are critical shortcomings in the strategy of women development programme and its implementation..."

The last words
We can thus reckon that few factors should be addressed for raising the rate of economic participation of women. First and foremost is the economic growth itself to produce a tight labour market so that wage rate is increased. Second, government should embark upon more infrastructural development especially connecting households with electricity. In Bangladesh, less than one-fifth of the households are reported to have access to electricity. And finally, the supply of credit to poor households should constitute an important plank of policy matters.

The empowerment issue should be addressed mainly through imparting training to women on different economic activities, especially agricultural practices. Meantime, the formal and informal educative schemes should move on.

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University