Women's participation in the South Pacific economies
Year: 1987
Type: book
Abstract: In this region of 22 states at various stages of development the authors attempt to assess womens participation in the economy to explore the factors affecting womens participation in the cash sector and to discuss policy options for improving the employment status of women. The traditional role of women as producers of subsistence food through farming fishing and animal husbandry has caused great underrepresentation of women in employment statistics because women engaging in these activities are often not counted as employed in census data. Excluding or including these women can skew the statistics on womens participation in the economy by as much as 70%. On the other hand the number of South Pacific women participating in the cash sector genuinely is very small. In predominantly rural Papua New Guinea for example womens participation in the cash economy in rural areas was 5% in urban areas 16%. Womens participation in the work force also varies by age and marital status. In Fiji for example urban formerly married women aged 25-44 years achieved a participation rate of 60%. Distribution by industry showed that of the women active in the nonagricultural sector in most countries the majority are in service industries or trade with very few in manufacturing construction transport or finance. In the Cook Islands Fiji Kiribati the Solomon Islands Samoa and Tonga at least 1/5 of the working women are in professional occupations and throughout the region between 17 and are office or clerical workers. Very few however are agricultural extension workers accountants secretaries engineers teachers doctors dentists or government administrators. The main reason that these categories of employment as well as government jobs are not available to women is that women are not as well educated as men. The low status of women especially in Melanesia as well as traditional views concerning the educational needs of women cause poor families to educate sons in preference to daughters and educational outreach programs are generally directed at teaching basic skills. Moreover women who do achieve an education often find that there are limited opportunities to use it in the islands and therefore migrate particularly to New Zealand and Australia where they have access to wage employment although most often in factory jobs and for lower wages than those paid to native New Zealanders and Australians. The authors conclude that the most important steps policy-makers should take to raise the economic status of women are: to provide more and more varied educational opportunities for women particularly in technological skills; to establish the right of women to own and control land and have access to credit; to recognize the potential of women in commerce and business; and to continue policies of economic growth so that appropriate jobs and commercial opportunities will exist for women to fill.
Authors: Carol B. Hetler, Siew‐Ean Khoo
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W623346303