Abstract
Achieving gender well-being and equality is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. A close examination of female livelihood time allocation can reveal gender inequality in livelihood choices between males and females. Using the feminist political ecology framework, this paper examines how gendered knowledge, roles, and responsibilities influence female livelihood time use in a patriarchal society like Bangladesh. We use a nationally representative household survey data to create Multiple Linear Regression Model to understand the association between economic, cultural, and environmental shocks with the total time allocation toward livelihood activities by women. Our results suggest that use of ‘Purdah’ by Muslim women acts as a negative detrimental factor towards their livelihood time allocation, thus affirming the complex role of culture and gendered economic activities. Women also allocate less time toward livelihood activities during pregnancy and/or breastfeeding. We find that female livelihood time use also depends on their ability to speak in public, their autonomy in livelihood decision processes, and their ownership in business enterprises. This research suggests creating more robust and gender sensitive policies in Bangladesh that can help achieve the United Nation’s goals of Sustainable Development.
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Notes
To better account of these variances, our original plan was to conduct in-depth interviews, focus groups and surveys with the rural women in Bangladesh. We were also awarded the grants to conduct the field work to support our proposed hypothesis. However, the onset of the Covid pandemic stalled our field-based mixed-methods and qualitative research work, and hence we had to continue with this research using the existing and best available secondary data sources. We still plan on conducting some detailed fieldwork, using a multitude of household surveys, focus groups and semi-structured interviews to add more in-depth and wider perspectives on women’s empowerment and fulfillment of the UN’s sustainable goals of development. These future research, when completed, will be published in subsequent volumes of this and other reputed international journals.
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Acknowledgements
All correspondence regarding this paper must be addressed to Faisal Islam, Email:fislam@udel.edu. This research was supported by an internal grant awarded to Dr. Madhuri Sharma and I for our collaborative research during Summer 2021. The grant is titled The Office of Research and Extension Scholarly & Research Incentive Funds (SARIF), University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the title of the project is “Gendered Effect on Livelihood and Mobility Decision Making Processes in Climate Vulnerable Coastal Bangladesh.” I and Dr. Sharma are grateful to the University of Tennessee for its financial assistance of $3,600 to me which allowed me to focus on my entire data analyses and writing and final defense of my Master’s Thesis in July 2021. This paper is one chapter of my MS Thesis. I sincerely thank my advisor Dr. Madhuri Sharma and my committee members Dr. Nicholas Nagle and Dr. Kelsey Ellis for their kind patience, supervision and support throughout my 2 years of MS degree at University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
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Islam, F.B., Sharma, M. Socio-economic determinants of women’s livelihood time use in rural Bangladesh. GeoJournal 87 (Suppl 4), 439–451 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-021-10556-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-021-10556-6