June 2008 - Volume 2, Issue 3

Literacy among the female workers in industries of Rajshahi in Bangladesh

Dr. Md. Aminul Hoque Associate Professor Department of Statistics University of Rajshahi Rajshahi-6205 Bangladesh Fax: +88-721-750064 Mobile: +88-01914254017 E-mail: mdaminulh@gmail.com

ABSTRACT One of the important aspects of human development is education both at the individual and the collective levels. Higher level of education means higher jobs implying higher standard of living. In this paper attempts are made to analyze the educational characteristics of the female workers who work in different types of industries at and around Rajshahi city corporation area in Bangladesh. In all 891 workers are interviewed and the majority of them (20.20%) are found to work in sericulture industries followed by cottage industries (18.2%). Of the 891 women 52.1% are literate. Of the literate females 51.5% have primary level of education 42.7% secondary level and only 5.8% above secondary level. Maximum numbers of literate females are found to work in sericulture industries (32.3%) followed by textile industries (19.6%). We find strong external effects of education on individual earnings. Key Words: Human Development, Female workers, Industry, Level of Education, High Job.

INTRODUCTION

Life of women in Bangladesh is plagued with poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and socio-economic backwardness. In addition to these, the prevailing traditions and cultural taboos greatly restrict a woman's activities in society. Being connected with other parts of the world through the movement of capital, goods and people is nothing new for Bangladesh. In the pre-colonial period, Bengal, the eastern half of which constitutes the present Bangladesh, was once a centre of cotton textile and silk manufacturing (Gardner 1995). And women were by no means excluded from the influence of the globalisation of that period. While women's labour, in high demand for production of home spun yarn during the eighteenth century, lost its value when textiles made in British factories began to flood the Bangladeshi market, the rise of the export-oriented readymade garment industry has given Bangladesh women a predominant position in the economic and social space opened up by globalization (Hossain, Jahan and Sobhan 1990).

Bangladesh is one of the developing countries of the world. After 36 years of our country's independence we are still poor and underdeveloped due to the major causes of low literacy rate and less industrialization. Gender disparity is a reflection of complex social, cultural, and economic issues. While some improvement in gender equality has been achieved in sectors such as education, health and family welfare, labour and employment, and democratic participation, in Bangladesh true empowerment is still a distant goal. Women can do a miracle for themselves and the country if they get opportunities to live according to their own choice. There was a time not far back when a woman's life in our country was peaceful and she used to be treated as an asset in her husband's household. Besides her reproductive role, she used to put in a lot of domestic and agricultural labour for the family in the whole course of her life.

The female population is about half of our total population, but women's activities are very low, tin the effort to build up our nation and financial prosperity. Imam (1989) said that no development efforts could be successful without the participation of fifty percent of the labour force of a particular country. According to Buvinic (1993), poverty oriented research utilizes certain techniques to avoid the tendency to undervalue women's work. There are few industries in our country in which a number of females work, except garment sectors. The past two decades have witnessed a rapid growth of the female labour force in Bangladesh. Women's participation in certain types of non-traditional jobs has increased significantly in the recent past. A growing number of females are now joining the labour force in both agriculture and non agriculture activities such as earth cutting, brick breaking, road maintenance and other construction works as well as in sewing, embroidery, basket making and other handicraft. Frepd (1986) found the employment rate of women in the NGO's to be 48% in 1986, but it is still so small in comparison to the population or to the male workers. FAO (1974) found in Asia 40 percent of the agriculture labour force is female who do much of the work involved in producing and processing rice. But such figures are now so small in the industries sector. Several lots of research have been done (Ahasan et al., 2002a, 2002b; Behrens and Brackhil, 1993; Bangladesh Bank, 1998; Irene Tinker, 1992; Abdullah, 1998; Basu et al., 2001; Kabir, 1993; Mannan, 1989; Islam, 1989; UNDP, 1994; Banu, 1988; World Bank, 1990, 1996; BGMEA, 2001; BSCIC, 1998; ADB, 2001; Brayfied and Rothe, 1951; and FAO, 1974) on female workers, their life and education levels as a whole, in Bangladesh.

Unfortunately there is no nationwide data on literacy level and socio-economic status of the female workers who work in different types of industries of Bangladesh. There are a few industries in Rajshahi, a relatively less developed area in respect of industry, and a very few number of women work in these industries. Wazifa (1989) has done some works on silk as an industry which has had a tremendous effect on the economy of the district. In this paper we have tried to highlight their educational level related to their age, the type of appointment and type of industries and residence.

The main objectives of the study are:

• To look at the relationship between level of education and female's age
  
• To examine the association between the type of appointment and level of education
  
• And to test the independence of level of education and type of industries.
  

DATA AND METHODOLOGY

The present study has utilized the data collected in a survey of a few industries in and around Rajshahi city area of Bangladesh. In the study by female workers we mean those women who have been working in different types of industries in the study area.

We have found 34 industries categories such as: jute mill (1), sugar mills (1), sericulture (all types) (8), textile mills (3), rice mills (7), biscuits factory (2), press (1), printing (2), all types of cottage industries (4), weaving (1), fabrics (4) etc . In all 891 female workers were interviewed from their respective industries. For the sake of our study all of the 34 industries are categorized as follows:

(i) Sericulture : Rajshahi Sericulture factory.
(ii) Textile mill: Rajshahi Textile Mill limited.
(iii) Jute mill : Rajshahi Jute Mill.
(iv) Sugar mill: Rajshahi Sugar Mill.
(v) Rice mill: Sahi Rice mill, Noor Habib Rice mill, Goribeneouz Rice mill, Haque Rice mill, Serajul Rice mill, Sekandar Rice mill, and Keramat Rice mill.
(vi) Small and Cottage industries : Sopura silk mills limited , Alamgir fabrics, North Bengal silk printings factory, Mahila shilpa sangstha, Surovi textile, S.M silk industry limited, Munnu weaving factory, Silko textile , Mahila shilpa pratisthan, Suman fabrics, Uttara silk printings factory, padma silk factory, Meraj Fabrics etc.
(vii) Miscellaneous: Palash metal industries limited, Rijent Aluminium factory, Sonali printings, Grenary bekar, Sumi Homio Hall, Natural Drugs, Bismillah Printings factory, Amzad Jarda factory, Aroma Foods etc.

For our purpose we have considered the female workers as regular and irregular workers. Regular means the females have a permanent job and irregular means a temporary job (e.g. daily workers, contract workers, part time workers or seasonal workers etc.).
Some of the female workers are literate and some are illiterate. Literate female workers are classified on the basis of their educational level as follows:

(i) Primary level of education
(ii) Secondary level of education
(iii) Higher Secondary level and
(iv) Graduate and above.

On the basis of the above mentioned classifications some cross tables are constructed to obtain the percent distribution and relationship between these classifications.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The percent distribution of the female workers is presented in Table 1. It has been found from this Table that 20.2% of the total female workers are working in sericulture factories and about 16% in textile mills. Only 2.25% and 3.59% are working in jute and sugar mills respectively, whereas about 17% are working in rice mills and 18.2% are in cottage industries. We have the same trend of female workers from Figure 1. Thus we have seen that considerable numbers of female workers are working in sericulture factories and textile mills, both these industries are relatively big ones.

Figure 1. Bar Diagram of Female Workers Working in Different Industries

Table 2 presents the distribution of the female workers by age and type of industries. From this table we have found that 20.7% of the total female workers, which is the highest, belong to the age group 25-29 followed by 19.1% in 30-34 and 15.8% in 20-24 .But in the sericulture factory 30.6% are in the highest age group 35-39 followed by 25.5% in 30-34 and 17.2% in the age group 40-44 respectively.

In textile industries, we have found the same results as sericulture industries as well as jute and sugar industries .But in the rice mill and small andd cottage industries we have found different results from the previous ones. Among these type (Rice mill and cottage industries) of industries the highest female workers are found in the age group 25-29.

From Table 3 the highest percentage (24.4%)of the illiterate female workers are found in the age group 25-29, followed by workers in the age groups 20-24 and 30-34 respectively.

Note: (r) represent reference category;
: *** for P<0.01, ** for P<0.05, and * for P<0.1

We have also found from Table 3 that the literate female workers who are educated to primary level the highest percentage (24.7%) are in the age group 35-39, secondary level the highest percentage (29.3%) being in the age group 30-34 followed by 19.7% in 35-39. We observed from this Table that the female workers of the middle age groups have possessed relatively higher education than the other workers.

Distribution of the female workers by the type of appointment and level of education are presented in Table 4.1 and 4.2. It has been found from Table 4.1 that just half of the total female workers are permanent (50.7%) and another half are temporary (49.3%). We have also found that 52.1% are literate and 47.9% are illiterate.

= 87.2 and (1,.05) =3.84

It has been found from this Table that out of the permanent female workers 67.5% are illiterate and 32.5% are illiterate and out of the temporary workers 36.2% are literate, which is a smaller group than illiterate workers (63.8%).There is clear evidence that the type of appointment is highly associated with the literacy of female workers and such a relationship is statistically significant.

=15.49 and (2,.05)=5.99

From Table 4.2 we have found that out of the permanent literate female worker 46.2% are of primary level, which is the highest, followed by 45.6% of secondary level, 5.6% of higher level and only 2.6% are graduate and above. Out of literate temporary female workers, 61.1% are of primary level which is the highest, 37.1% are of the secondary level, only 1.3% higher secondary level and none is of graduate level or above. However the type of appointment and the level of education of the workers appear to be statistically significant.

From Table 5.1 and 5.2 we have found that the distribution of the female workers by type of industry and level of education. Out of the literate female workers 32.3% are found in sericulture factories followed by textile mills 19.6%, small and cottage industries 23.0% and textile industries 11.7%. Our statistical evidence is that literacy of female workers is highly influenced for getting jobs in various types of industries.

=241.91 and (6,.05) =12.56

From Table 5.2 we found that among the literate females 51.5% are of primary level, 42.7% secondary level, 4.1% are of higher secondary and only 1.7% is of graduate levels. Again from these tables literate female workers who work in textile mills, 53.8% are of primary level, 38.5% are secondary level and only 5.5% have higher secondary level. From this table we also found that the literate female workers who were engaged in the jute mill 27.3% are of primary level, 9.1% are of secondary level and 45.5% are of higher secondary level.

=164.63 and (16,.05)=26.30

Moreover we found from this table that the literate female workers who work in sericulture industries 44.67% are of primary level, 54.0% are of secondary and each of 0.67% are both of higher secondary and graduate levels. As our calculated value of c2 (164.63) is much greater than that of tabulated value of c2 at 5% level of significance which implies we should not ignore the relationship between type of industries with the level of education.

Source: Bangladesh Data Sheet 1999

Number of employees in different manufacturing industries are presented in Table 6.1 for the year 1990-91 and 1995-96. I found from this table that number of employees increased from 1990-91 to 1995-96 but the number of female workers are still much lower than male workers.

Source: Bangladesh Data Sheet 1999

Figure 2: Male-female literacy rate over age 15 in 1998

Source: Bangladesh Data Sheet 1999

We have also found the literacy situation (Table 6.2 and Figure 2) of Bangladesh that the female literacy is far behind the male both in rural and urban areas. Some nationwide demographic and educational characteristics are presented in Table 6.3. From this table we have found that expectation of life at birth for both male and females are not remarkably different. Even the infant mortality rate per thousand for female infants (90) is a little higher than the male infant (86) but the

Source: Bangladesh Data Sheet 1999

adult literacy rate for females is significantly lower than that of male literacy rate. We have also found discrepancy of school enrolment between male and females in all the level of educations. It means that education level of Bangladeshi females is comparatively lower than male which reflects the literacy situation of female workers in industries.

CONCLUSION

In Bangladesh, Rajshahi is one of the under-developed and less industrialized areas of the country. There are a limited number of industries in and around Rajshahi city. The female workers who work in industries of Rajshahi are mostly less educated. Only 3.03% of female workers are above higher secondary level. Most of the literate female workers have a permanent job in their industries and their livelihood is perhaps better than the others. The study bears out the evidence of universal phenomenon that better education means better jobs which means better standards of living. The females who work in various industries of Rajshahi and among those, they who are better educated are engaged in some big industries like Silk and Jute industries where the jobs are more or less secured.

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