Bangladesh has made significant additions for its populace, the world’s eighth biggest with in excess of 170 million individuals. One of the best indicators of overall economic well-being, per capita incomes, have increased sevenfold over the past three decades while poverty has decreased to a small fraction of its former levels. Women’s increased labor force participation, particularly in the garment industry, has contributed to this progress, as have other significant advancements in women’s empowerment.
Recent analysis, nonetheless, shows there are still huge holes among women and men. Notably, women only make up half of the workforce compared to men. According to previous research conducted by the IMF, closing this gap could result in a nearly 40% increase in the country’s economic output. In addition, women still have a lower chance than men of obtaining a tertiary education, and they have more difficulty gaining access to financial services. The productivity of the economy as a whole could rise if both factors are addressed.
The extreme vulnerability of Bangladesh to climate change and natural disasters also hinders efforts to close gender gaps. Climate shocks, like other economic shocks, typically have the greatest impact on the already poor and vulnerable. As a result, Bangladeshi women, who typically have fewer resources than men, stand to suffer disproportionately.
The International Monetary Fund’s analysis also reveals a number of other factors that make women in Bangladesh particularly vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters:
In Bangladesh, the majority of women work in agriculture and informal employment. Agriculture is directly impacted by climate change, and informal workers are particularly susceptible to climate shocks due to their lack of access to social insurance programs.
Men primarily employ international and domestic migration as important climate adaptation strategies. Bangladeshi men are multiple times bound to be utilized abroad than women, who will generally be essential parental figures for youngsters and the old, leaving them not so much portable but rather more liable to stay living in regions exceptionally presented to environmental change.
Women’s time poverty is expected to get worse as these tasks become more time-consuming due to rising temperatures, rising sea levels, deforestation, and more frequent cyclones and droughts.
In its Climate Change Strategy from 2009, Bangladesh already acknowledged the necessity of incorporating gender perspectives. The first Climate Change and Gender Action Plan, which was approved by the government in 2013, was updated in March 2024. Renewed efforts will be needed to ensure successful implementation of the plan and achieve simultaneous progress on climate action and gender equality. To this end, policymakers would hav to capitalize as much as possible on the synergies between women’s empowerment, economic growth, and increased resilience to climate change.
According to IMF, policies that support women’s labor force participation deserve particular attention, including those that expand their access to skills development and higher education, ease unpaid care burdens by expanding affordable childcare, reduce informality, and address gender norms that discourage women from seeking formal jobs and higher pay.
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Boosting health and education spending would help empower women while raising labor productivity and making the whole population more resilient to climate change.
Persistent gaps between women and men in access to finance should be tackled by instilling confidence in formal finance, strengthening women’s property rights and carrying out financial literacy campaigns targeted at women.
Bangladesh was an early adopter of gender responsive budgeting and has more recently introduced climate budget tagging, a tool for tracking climate-related spending in the national budget. However, insufficient integration of gender and climate considerations during the initial strategic phase of budget formulation means that the system in Bangladesh currently functions primarily as an ex-post accounting exercise.
Improvements in this area combined with more systematic impact assessment of government programs would enable more efficient channeling of public resources toward achieving the country’s gender equity and climate goals.
Women should not be thought of as mere beneficiaries of climate action. Rather, just as women played an integral role in the development of the garment industry and Bangladesh’s growth success in recent decades, they should be empowered to play an active role in the country’s green transition.
