Background
According to the National Plan of Action for the Improvement of the
Status of Women in Kazakhstan, in its issue “Women and Economy”, the following
objective has been formulated: “to integrate gender aspects into macro-
and micro- levels of the national economy of Kazakhstan”. However, very
few governmental officials and regional public administrations take this
issue seriously in the current transition process. A majority of
social institutions are unaware of human rights perspectives of gender
equality in society, because they do not perceive it as a serious problem.
The problem of gender inequalities is not understood by our society, especially
from the economic point of view, because it is quite a new subject of policy
debates for the transitional economies. As a consequence, there is no any
reliable information provided in our society about the nature and scope
of barriers about gender inequalities at the intra-enterprise level, as
well as strategies to enable both men and women to contribute to this development
agenda. Together with the increasing impoverishment of the population,
the transformation process has led to the destruction of the social sphere,
which is most obvious in public health, education and pension provision.
It reinforces gender inequality and creates a threat to national security.
There is an urgent need to study the interconnection between microeconomics
processes and social and gender policies.
The first notion of “gender” appeared in 1997, after opening the GID (Gender in Development) Bureau in Kazakhstan with its purpose of strengthening the status of women in Kazakhstan society and promoting women’s participation into national development activities (mainly, in parliament). A very little is known about the gender inequalities in the labor market, because the gender statistics is not available on the sector of SME. It makes even more difficult to study the intra-enterprise situation, because of the hidden labor market and a big reluctance of small businesses’ owners to provide the social benefits to employees.
Gender differences between men and women vary across countries as well as over time – and consequently, (unlike sex) can be changed by government policy, education, media images and opinion leaders. For example, the degree to which women actually participate in and contribute to the production process is highly dependent on their marital status, on whether they have small children, and on whether they have to care for other persons in their households. Men’s participation in and contribution to the production process are also affected by these factors, but not in a constraining way.
Many differences between men and women, such as income, life expectancy, educational attainment can be seen, measured and readdressed, but many other differences and the causes lie in what covered under the term “Gender”.
This term refers to the social constructs – the institutions – that greatly influence our behavior and interactions. We do not know how these institutions (particularly, SMEs) influence people’s behavior in Kazakhstan. So far, the concept of “gender inequality” is understood only as differences in sex. A middle class as strata adapted to the new conditions, which could serve as a foundation for the formation of market relationships and a new socio-political structure, is practically non-existent in Kazakhstan society. The share of SME in the domestic national product is 23% (with only 3,8% of input from small business).
There are current policy debates in the area of draft law on Equal rights and Equal Opportunities, which includes the definition of “gender equality” and “gender equality of rights”. In the near future, the analysts and policy makers can consider only two economic indicators of gender equality and women’s empowerment (currently in the process of development): the indicators of wage employment and proportion of seats held by women in national parliament.
The status of women and men increasingly depends on the situation in
the state and especially its economic reforms and on the development of
democracy. There are huge changes occurred for these 10 years of independence,
but there is a very little information how the gender patterns at work
have been changed especially at the level of SME or intra-enterprise level.
Kazakhstan Summary for Gender statistics informs that the indicators for
Employment Position Segregation by gender and primary employment position
groups have not been developed for reporting. The development of employment
statistics for the labor force division by gender began only in 2001. There
is no any statistics on employment and unemployment in SME sector. There
is an urgent need to introduce or research the gender indicators such as
percentage composition of fully employed women, part-time and part-week
employed women as well as working conditions by social groups.
The situation at the intra-enterprise level is changing as well, in
different studies in the issue of labor market show a very interesting
results. For instance, the results of a follow-up study to the Ford/Rockefeller
Project “Understanding Unemployment and Working Time: a cross-country comparative
Study” (June, 2000) are really astonishing.
- The initial hypothesis that a significant portion of the inter-country
differences in reported Unemployment/Employment rates could be explained
by differences in the methodology and definitions in each country is generally
incorrect according to the recent findings of Ford project. Instead of
the simple three-dimension categorization of “employed-unemployed-out of
the labor force”, there is now a broad spectrum of labor market status.
This suggests that a new set of labour market statistics – a new set of
social indicators has to be created to provide a more accurate measure
of labor market “tightness” bringing the new statistics for gender inequalities
as well.
It is important to establish such characteristics of labor statistics or indices of inequalities, which can fully reflect the similarities and differences in the respective situations of men and women in the labor market. Studying life values of modern women becomes topical. We can identify such group of women who are strongly work-oriented because the money they earn are life-necessities for them and their families regardless of women’s marital status which is quite a new feature for the Central Asian women. In this regards, the category “women’s labor” should be considered by the following characteristics: nationality, time allocation among different age groups in the context of average per week, average per workday, average per weekends and holidays, paid work, education, personal needs, leisure time, as well as salary by specifying gender.
Sometimes occupational segregation by sex has an important negative effect on how men see women as well as how women see themselves by reinforcing and perpetuating gender stereotypes. This, in turn, negatively affects women’s status and empowerment and consequently many social variables such as mortality and morbidity, poverty and income inequality. It should be negatively resulted on the market efficiency and labor market functioning. Segregation of men and women into different occupations negatively affects the education and training of future generations. The low pay and incomes for women workers that accompany occupational segregation and becoming an increasingly important contributor to poverty and inequality in society as a whole.
Nevertheless, even at this stage it is already obvious that there is a need to capture such aspects as job quality, unemployment hardship, the incidence and duration of unemployment for individuals, real wage levels, and the length of the working day and year. All of these get lost when the focus of attention is the official or standardized unemployment rate.
Resulted economic and social reforms in Kazakhstan influenced a life significantly: there is an increasing number of incomplete families in the republic, a low birth rate, migration processes out of country. Combining study of both “white spots” - the SME sector and gender inequalities at the intra-enterprise level - is becoming a real pioneer research.
The project’s objectives
The main goal of the project is to become familiar with the microeconomics
situation in small and medium size enterprises from gender aspects and
identify the main problems and constraints. It will include the following
objectives:
- to make a socio-economic analysis of gender inequalities,
- to examine the influence of market transition reforms on SMEs from
gender prospective;
- to compare the different models of gender policies; develop an appropriate
set of qualitative and quantitative indices of inequality;
- to write a research monograph on the issues of intra-enterprise level
gender inequalities in Kazakhstan; and
- to develop a policy paper on program strategies in the field of gender
policy
Preliminary Plan for the project fulfillment and Methodology:
1. March to April, 2003: Research theory and practice related to gender
related issues of macroeconomic and microeconomic reforms in different
regions of
- EU countries
- Countries with transitional economy
- Kazakhstan
This phase will consist of the following activities:
a) Gathering data from literature and other sources to become familiar
with the most effective and successful practice in European countries;
b) Research trip to the International Labour Organisation, Geneva
- to learn the socio-economic, regional labour market determinants
of occupational segregation and the modern practice of gender
descriptive statistics with the new inequality indices;
- to be acquainted with the new methodologies the relevant sources
of literature and practical aspects of this problem;
- to make analysis of the best practice from different models (European
and other countries of transitional economy)
- to become familiar with the professionals in both gender and labour
issues.
2. May to June, 2003: Making comparative analysis of Kazakhstan and
other countries and a review of the theoretical and empirical literature
on gender inequalities at the level of enterprises, paying special attention
to the impact of trade liberalization policies on gendered patterns of
employment, work conditions (and possibly, leisure time); specific forms
of disadvantages at hiring, promotion and wage decision and the modern
quantitative/qualitative approaches used for gender inequalities;
3. July, 2003: Preparing database of small and medium size enterprises
and data collection using Questionnaire
4. August, 2003– October, 2003: a) Working over methodology: Data analysis:
organizing the data and determining its meaning or implication. Data evaluation:
determining what conclusions may be drawn from the data; b) Specific activities
related to visiting SMEs in the different sectors of economy, studying
the working conditions, identifying the problems, preparing a sample of
different groups, interviewing the owners of SMEs and their employees
5. November – December, 2003: Providing an in-depth qualitative and
quantitative analysis and description; preparing the draft version of monograph
and policy paper and discussing it with the professionals and policy makers
6. January-February, 2004: Developing recommendations applicable to
the Kazakhstan environment
7. March, 2004: Preparing the final version of monograph and policy
paper and presenting it to the relevant groups of professionals, the researches
from the Institute of Gender Studies, the Department of Small Business
of Akimat, experts of the Pragma Corporation.
Application of the project results:
The expected outcome of the proposed project is a monograph on gender related issues of microeconomic reforms in SMEs in Kazakhstan and a policy paper. By identifying problems, constraints and providing in depth analysis and description of the economic structure of enterprise in the context of gender and presenting it to the public.
The benefits from this research will be very significant, first of all, for the policy makers who define the government priorities; second, for the middle-class people – understanding the future social and economic development of their enterprises
The project results will be published and sent to the relevant institutions in this field: the policy makers and opinion leaders, the Institute of Gender Studies, the Institute of Strategic Studies, the Confederation of Employers, Department of Small Business, the Association of Business Women, the Women’s Association, UNDP, ILO, OECD.
Planning activity includes Public discussions, workshops and debates with presentation of results of the project and a policy paper.