Economic meltdown has a woman's face

By AMELITA KING DEJARDIN
Special to The Japan Times

MANILA — The current economic crisis is deepening faster than even the most pessimistic of experts predicted just a few months ago. The effects are already trickling down to ordinary working people.

In the Asia-Pacific, the International Labor Organization has projected that as many as 27 million more people could become unemployed this year. One hundred forty million others in the region's developing economies could be forced into extreme poverty. Yet what is so far lacking in many of the debates on how countries should respond is a realization that this crisis has a gender bias. Here in Asia, working women will be affected more severely, and differently, from their male counterparts.
Why are women affected differently? One reason is that women workers are concentrated in labor-intensive export industries that feed into global supply chains.

The consequence of losing a job also affects women differently, and more severely. And because women workers in Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam — among other countries — are concentrated in lower paid jobs, they tend to save less; so a small pay cut or price rise can severely damage them and their dependents.
It is therefore crucial that when governments, employers and workers organizations sit down to discuss policies to combat the social and economic effects of the crisis, they do so from the perspective of women as well as men.

Finally, special attention is needed to ensure that women's own views and opinions are heard. If crisis response packages are to be effective, they must take these gender differences into account. This week brings International Women's Day (March 8), a regular and natural opportunity to focus on the situation of women in this region.