Thesis on Women Education And Employment
Women Education – Women’s subordinate position in developing countries affects their access to education and employment. Women do not have equal access to formal education from primary school through higher education.
Formal education in most developing countries discriminates against many sections of society, such as the rural masses, the lower classes and above all, women and girls. Disparities between male and female enrolment rates still exist. Because women are in highly disadvantageous conditions in developing countries, it is not surprising to have them constituting an estimated 65 percent of the illiterates.
Apart from formal education, women are also underrepresented in vocational and technical education. Also, the emphasis in women’s education is directed at areas that will enable women to be more effective in domestic duties, which include childcare. For instance, women are generally confined to education that imparts skills in social services such as family welfare, teaching or nursing.
Women Education
Discrimination against women in formal education affects their role in areas such as employment and political participation. Despite rapid increases in the number of women employed in formal wage employment in the past two decades, their low level of education has trapped them in low-skilled jobs. In the Less Developed Countries (LDCs), women employed in the formal or modem sector average 21 percent. Women are normally not candidates for advanced training or for positions requiring higher levels of education and expertise.
“The fact that women withdraw from time to time to bear and rear children, thus shortening their total working life, makes an investment in education and training relatively unrewarding for themselves and for their employers”. In most developing countries, women are generally underrepresented among employees in the non-agricultural workforce. But within jobs in the formal sector, women are defined as less-skilled workers. In most cases, they are concentrated in middle and low-level jobs, work in poor conditions and receive low pay.
“Women form one of the cheapest and most vulnerable parts of the wage labor force, and are thus open to high-level exploitation,”. For example, women employed by multinational corporations in free trade zones in South East Asia and other countries in Latin America are highly exploited. The corporations are able to exploit their cheap labor under the pretext that women have ‘nimble’ fingers, are capable of doing repetitive jobs in relocated industries, are young and have no family responsibilities. Hence, women’s docility and subservience provide a conducive atmosphere for smooth operations and for the maximization of profit.
