The silent revolution in rural Bangladesh

Civil society representatives involved in rural development activities have recently presented some interesting facts in different workshops. They have referred to the expansion of physical infrastructure in rural Bangladesh -- roads and bridges, rural electrification and the growth of marketing outlets. They have pointed out how such factors are urbanising the rural landscape in terms of opportunities.

Options of earning livelihood are also undergoing changes and expanding in terms of scope -- particularly in the non-farm sector. Apparently, this has been facilitated to a large extent by increase in remittances received from abroad. Petty savings of expatriate Bangladeshis working in the Gulf, in Saudi Arabia and in parts of Europe have enabled many marginalised rural family units to get a fresh lease of life. This is reflected in better housing and the steady growth not only in the number of small shops but also in the variety of services that these shops are dealing in throughout the rural landscape. Now there are more small enterprises in the villages. These include petty trading, tailoring, embroidery work, handicrafts based on reeds, cane and bamboo. There has also been a steady increase in the number of rickshaws and in rickshaw-pullers in the rural services sector. This has been facilitated by a growing network of rural feeder roads.

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Expansion of micro-credit has also created other small enterprises. These small units include poultry farming, pisci-culture, agro-processing, handicrafts and dairy farming. Many women have also availed of such credit to buy mobile phones and set up mini-telecommunication centres in villages. This has enabled expatriate Bangladeshis to access to their relatives back home (without telephone connections). Such a facility is particularly useful during family emergencies. This has been repeatedly demonstrated during the recent floods.

One sector of rural society has been particularly influenced by these gradual changes. Girls, specially women, are slowly beginning to acquire their own identities by taking advantage of new opportunities.

Rural Bangladesh has traditionally been very conservative and the central role of women have over the years been restricted to a life cycle of early marriage, motherhood (most often in the teens) and need for drastic adjustment with husbands (who are usually about eight to twelve years older) and in-laws. DFIDB research in Bangladesh has indicated that restrictions on social inter-function are also clearly evident in female-headed households, whether de jure (widowed, divorced or abandoned) or de facto (where the man of the house is absent from the home for periods of time). Such a situation has, quite understandably, led to women in rural Bangladeshi society struggling to achieve authority, status and access to opportunities. It is this aspect which is slowly changing, and that too for the better. There is a silent revolution taking place in the rural heartland of Bangladesh.

The changes that rural women are bringing across in the economic front, as human capital, is re-writing the socio-cultural dimension.

Women in Bangladesh, particularly those living in small mofussil towns and in villages have always worked very hard. However, till now, most of this labour was unpaid. Surveys carried out recently demonstrate that there has been a drastic change.

A growing number of women -- both rural and urban -- have undertaken paid work, particularly occupations outside their homes. Such activity has in turn increased their spending power and their ability to exert more influence within their households, specially in decision making. The emergence of garment and other factory work alongwith professional jobs like health workers and NGO workers have facilitated this process.

A study undertaken by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies in 2003 revealed that the participation of women in the employed labour force has been increasing in absolute and relative terms. The female share of increase in the labour force was 23 per cent between 1983-84 and 1989. It rose to 48 per cent between 1989 and 1995-96 and rose again to 72 per cent between 1995-96 and 1999-2000.

Two important facts were also clear from the study. This growth was not restricted only to the urban sector. It was also evident that there was substantial rural to urban migration of rural women looking for formal employment with a regular wage and more secure workers' rights. In addition, sociologists in separate studies also concluded that this growth of association of women in the external work force in a largely Muslim country is creating a more secular approach to women's lives.

Today, women are active in all the three main sources of economic growth in this country -- ready made garments, crop production and informal agro-processing related to poultry farming, dairy farming, pisci-culture and the production of various kinds of conserved food items like achar, morobba and dried sweets. According to the BGMEA, the RMG sector alone employs nearly two million people of whom 80 per cent are women. Significant numbers, estimated at around four million are also working openly in the fields as agricultural labour, particularly in the labour intensive sector of horticultural crops.

In rural areas, growing awareness of dignity of labour is also encouraging women to seek work as domestic labour or even as common labour associated with earthworks or food for work. This is a basic change in survival strategy. It is a big step forward.

Some conservative and fundamentalist elements have at times been critical of such exposed work for women and have claimed that it increases their vulnerabilities. Results have, however, demonstrated that such a view becomes inconsequential given the positives that flow out from such an involvement. It provides the women with necessary self-confidence and enables them to inter-act more effectively within a male dominated traditional society. I believe that these changes in the social norm are effectively 're-negotiating' the extent to which the negative elements of culture applies in rural society.

The income derived from these opportunities is today going a long way in improving nutritional intake and ensuring health care for children in poor families. Their participation in the external environment is also opening doors and windows and giving them their own voice. It is enhancing their ability to initiate required activities like family planning, to effect late marriages for their daughters and facilitate the education of their children (irrespective of gender) at least till primary or junior secondary levels. These factors are acting as catalysts not only towards their personal well-being but also for their families. This is generating hope for the erosion of poverty in the rural economy.

Muhammad Zamir is a former Secretary and Ambassador.