Gains by women reversed in economic downturn.

With the current economic crisis and the intensification of unemployment in the manufacturing and service sectors, Governments should not cut back social spending, but design their adjustment policies and programmes to be sensitive to women's needs, according to a recent regional forum in Bangkok on "The Impact of Globalization on Women" that was organized by the Women in Development Section, Social Development Division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

In the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, a feminization of work in much of the Asian region occurred in a context of overall economic growth. The high and rising proportion of women workers in total employment was especially marked in countries where export-oriented manufacturing was prominent, e.g., Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Sri Lanka.

While the conditions under which feminization occurred suggested that it was associated with inferior pay and working conditions for women, it was also true that access to earned income substantially improved many women's positions. However, the recent economic crisis has tended to reverse the positive aspect of this process although as economic conditions have worsened, it is likely that gender gaps will be reduced through worsening conditions of male workers, according to the forum.

However, while these issues are now widely known, the growing feminization of unemployment is more recent and less commented upon. Women workers are now disproportionately losing jobs due to retrenchment in manufacturing and services activities, and this process of retrenchment and job loss has only just begun.

The current deflationary adjustment policies are expected to adversely affect women not only as workers but also as household providers, mothers, etc., as a result of reductions in government expenditures and State activity in general, which come as part of the stabilization exercise. Real incomes will fall, as will standards of living for most women who will assume a greater burden of unpaid work.

In addition, since many women in Asia have been forced under the current circumstances to seek additional income outside the home, pressure has been placed on girl-children to take up some of the household and child care activities otherwise performed by their mothers. In some cases, this has led to their withdrawal from schooling, as seen in educational statistical data from Thailand. Other negative features are in the area of food security - a critical issue throughout South Asia, China Indonesia, as well as other parts of the region.

Increases in the relative price of food have put pressure on real consumption within households, and it is widely acknowledged that in many Asian societies, especially South Asia, social and cultural norms are such that women and girl-children face disproportionately excessive cuts in their food consumption when household per capita access to food declines.

As the Asian economic crisis enters into its second year with no signs of improvement in the immediate future, it is critical that effective measures be taken to respond to the impact on women. Noting the recent trends of unemployment brought on by the economic crisis and partly by new technological trends of production which have led to the reduction of women workers, the ESCAP meeting urged Governments to seek alternative and creative employment opportunities to keep the workforce at work, such as job-sharing arrangements or flexible working hours, provide greater opportunities for training and retraining, and to give expanded support to the informal sectors where women were becoming increasingly engaged in self-employment and entrepreneurship activities.

Experts have also warned that conditions are ripe for an increasing incidence of violence against women who are often vulnerable targets of frustrated aspirations. There is also the additional apprehension of a traditionalist reaction during times of economic crisis manifested in the redomestication of women.

In pointing out the rising incidences of child labour and related issues of the increasing school drop-out rate among girl students, the meeting called on policy makers to take creative measures to counter these negative trends, firing as possible suggestions school subsidies to keep children in school longer, as well as the establishment of local community-based schools as an alternative to public schools. Institutions such as ESCAP were urged to assume a greater and more active advocacy role with Governments as they tackle the economic crisis and its "contagion effect".