| dc.description.abstract | The pathway towards gender equality,
poverty eradication and inclusive economic
growth can be built by women empowerment. This
study addresses the problem of inadequate female
labour force participation in South Asia. As such,
following a mixed methodological approach, both
the qualitative and quantitative analyses were
triangulated to achieve the objective of the study.
Women’s Wage Compensation Sensitivity Index
(WWCSI) is constructed as the ultimate output of
the quantitative analysis using a sample of 112
respondents (non-working females) from Sri
Lanka, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The
findings of that analysis suggested that
compensating wage differentials can economically
empower non-working females in South Asia.
However, wage differential compensation is likely
to be more productive among rural females and
then among urban females, and it will be more
successful among less educated females. According
to the newly recognized backward bending nature
of WWCS curve, wage differential compensation
should be offered for females in prime working age
(25-45 years) instead of mothers with infants or
elder children. Further, governments should come
up with temporary subsidization programmes
especially for urban females in order to turn
housewives into own account worker because the
interest of females to earn at home is high. The
follow-up qualitative analysis involved an in-depth
inquiry on empirical evidence of wage differential
compensation sensitivity of non-working females
through a case study in Sri Lanka. Therein,
motherhood and children’s age, co-habitation of
grandparents, male supremacy in traditionally
patriarchal families, intergenerational education
and learning, voluntary child labour, human
trafficking for women labour exploitation and
growth needs and domestic financial requirements
were explored as the determinants of women’s
wage differential compensation sensitivity. | en_US |
