Integration into employment is not limited only to the will of individuals but to a set of factors that are often interlinked, preventing women from unleashing their talent and full potential. 

Women in South Asia and the MENA region continue to face a range of cultural, financial, and legal barriers more than their female counterparts across the globe. The economic and labour market specificities have positioned women in a weak starting point compared to men, leaving them with a lot of catching up. 

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Moreover, many of the barriers that render women economically inactive also haunt working women in their careers and slow down their progression. In other words, what hinders women from entering the workforce in the first place also naturally hinders their growth into business and management leadership positions. 

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Work and family care responsibilities 

In the absence of well-developed structural social support services offering quality domestic and family care, women continue to struggle to find balance between work and family. In the MENA countries and South Asia, the prevailing social norms still consider women as the primary carers, responsible for raising children, caring for the elderly and disabled, alongside everyday household duties (unpaid care work). Thus, the most dominant family model in the regions remains the “male breadwinner - female carer” followed by “the male breadwinner - female part time earner” (International Labour Organization Regional Office for Arab States, 2016).

 

The dual earner model is still less common, on average women spend about 5.5 hours of unpaid care work daily in comparison to less than one hour of work done by men, in the MENA region. In both Morocco, Tunisia and Iraq women spend more than 6 hours in household work, additionally the working hours are around 5 in Iran, Algeria and Oman (UN Women, 2017).

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According to the OECD data, the current patterns of growth in South Asia are heavily reliant on the unpaid care work, the female to male ratio to time devoted to household duties is very high across the countries, with Pakistan at the top of the list with a 10,25 ratio, India occupies the second spot with a 9,83 ratio. However, Bangladesh has the lowest ratio of 3,77 (OECD 2014).

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The existence of this female dominated unpaid care work is affecting the women’s abilities to pursue their education, find decent jobs but also evolve and climb the managerial ladder. This also causes further inequalities by pushing women to engage most of the time in informal, lower quality work where conditions and pay are substandard. 

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Problems can also be intensified in times of economic and health crises, such as COVID19, where challenges faced by women amplified and they were, still are, under the obligation to put enormous work to hold households together under these stresses. 

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Gender biased legislation 

Legal frameworks support women’s participation in national labour forces and consequently impact their development and progress. Likewise, the legal system influences human resources policies and motivational schemes in corporations. They can either form incentives for women to enter the workforce, or disincentives that lead women to quit. Many national constitutions confirm equality between men and women, however implementing mechanisms and translation of this principle into laws are often missing. In practice, men and women are not always entitled to equal treatment and equal opportunities. 

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Maternity leave: While all countries in the MENA region and South Asia provide for some maternity leave, it does not adhere to the recommendations by the ILO convention. Although formally not binding to provisions of a convention, paid maternity leave of 14 weeks has been established in Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania. In other MENA countries, the normal duration of the leave is shorter, being the shortest in Tunisia (30 days) (Cawtar). In South Asia, Bangladesh provides a 16 weeks paid leave, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India have a 12 weeks policy, while Nepal only offers 52 days (Addati et al. 2014). 

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Equal Pay for work of Equal Value: When asking 110 women across MENA and South Asia, 57,8% confirmed that they face discrimination in the workplace and they don’t get fair and equal compensation for the same work done by men. 

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The World Economic forum estimates the gender pay gap to be around 40% in the Middle East and North Africa; Proactive approaches to strengthen gender balance in the public sector are found in Egypt, Morocco and Bahrain, yet these examples remain the exception across the region. 

As per the latest UN report, the gender wage gap in Bangladesh is the lowest in the world, as it came down to 2.2% against the world average of 21.2% (International Labour Organization, 2018). Nonetheless, women in other South Asian countries earn lower salaries than men both in the public and private sectors. The political response to these gender inequalities has been insufficient, even as some important steps have been taken. Legal provisions to guarantee pay equality is not common in the region; in Nepal women earn 60% of what men earn for doing similar jobs, Pakistani women earn 34% less than men while Indian women obtain 24% less (International Labour Organization. 

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Finance & networking 

The high rate of financial illiteracy and lack of access to financial resources affect women’s growth and economic development especially if they are involved in entrepreneurship. In South Asia, only a small proportion of women have bank accounts in formal financial institutions. In Pakistan, only 3% of women possess bank accounts, In India, the figure for females is 26% and 35 per cent in Bangladesh, compared with 44 and 54% for men, respectively. The figures are higher in Sri Lanka, where 67% of women have bank accounts. 

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Furthermore, inheritance systems and particular practices and legislation limit women’s access to property rights and material assets. As a result, financial service providers often insist on guarantees from male family members. Research conducted in Lahore found that men’s decision was considered crucial for acute business operations and risk-taking related decisions given that women entrepreneurs were heavily dependent on their spouses (ESCAP-SWA, 2015). 

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In MENA economies, customary practices often prevent women from exercising their legal rights, which affects their ability to freely enter into contracts or conduct business. For example, women sometimes face constraints in exercising their property rights, or have unequal inheritance rights relative to men, and as a result are often unable to pledge collateral to obtain external financing for business start-up and development, 14.5 % of women expressed that there is a lack of mentoring and sponsoring opportunities (OECD, 2012). 

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Women do not have widespread access to mainstream business networks where they can gain information about business opportunities and markets and exchange experiences. The limited visibility of existing women entrepreneurs also means they have limited exposure to successful women entrepreneurs as role models, an important influencing factor in a woman’s decision to start her own business (OECD, 2012).