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Women and the economy - Nigeria's gender problem
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Last week we picked out the sectors that were responsible for Nigeria’s slow growth rate.
But more important than sectoral growth, there is the fundamental fact that Nigeria is trying to grow its economy with only half of its engines. Quite simply, the country has not given women an equal opportunity to participate in the economy, leaving out substantial gains to economic growth and more importantly, welfare.
According to Mckinsey, closing the gap between Nigeria’s men and women can increase the country’s GDP by 23% in 5 years.
That’s the equivalent of adding $230bn to our economy - a size close to the Egyptian or Ghanian economy four times over.
Today, we journey through the data to see where exactly Nigeria falls short of providing gender equality.
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IN THE BEGINNING.
According to the National Population Commission, there were 199 million Nigerians in 2017. Of the population, they estimated an almost equal split between the number of men (50.8%) and women (49.2%).
At this stage there is balance; and in normal circumstances, there is no difference in the earning potential and economic contribution of girls and boys being born. If anything, girls have a life expectancy at birth of 51 whereas boys are expected to live up until age 47 in Nigeria.
After birth, the next significant stage for most children is going to school. Here, It’s hard to overstate how important education is in determining one's earning potential or their ability to engage in society. Without education, it is harder to attain high levels of income, civic engagement and social mobility.
So what happens as boys and girls that enter the education system?
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THE RACE HAS ALWAYS BEEN RIGGED.
To begin with, despite the almost equal level of men and women in the population, only 12 million girls enrol in primary school compared with 13 million boys. Meaning 53% of boys were enrolled vs. 48% of girls eligible to start school.
Parents would have played the biggest role at this stage. A mixture of culture and the cost and benefits of sending a child to school - determined by how much a girl can earn in the future or help at home - led to the decision of keeping more girls away from primary school. Asking girls to stay home to do housework or even start working as housemaids is a very common theme in the country.
In school, out of the girls who made the start of primary education, 65% completed it, compared to a completion rate of 71% for the boys.
At junior secondary school, enrolment rates for girls dropped slightly from the 48% at primary level to 47% - male enrolment was unchanged at 53%. But the biggest move was in completion rates. Both genders suffer here but it's worse for girls.
Only 38% of girls complete junior secondary school compared to 43% for boys. The figure is even worse at senior secondary school where completion rates are 29% for girls and 33% for boys.
In case you thought it, the difference in completion rates between girls and boys is not down to grades. NECO and WAEC results show that girls and boys get almost identical results, girls edge slightly higher grades.
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What we have seen from the data is that initially, fewer girls were put into the education system. And as we progressively go through the years, more and more girls are taken out, not based on merit but due to cultural “norms” that somehow justify one gender doing less years of education.
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THE MOST ELIGIBLE NIGERIAN WOMEN DO NOT GO TO SCHOOL.
Unfortunately, the situation gets worse when it's time to go to university. Of the girls that completed secondary school, only 43% make it to undergraduate level. Compared with 57% of boys. At postgraduate level only 38% of eligible women enrol vs. 62% for men.
At this point, we should bring in another main explanation for the gap between women and men at university: marriage.
You see the average age for women to have their first marriage in Nigeria is 18. In fact, 23% of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are already mothers or currently pregnant according to the US and UK aid funded Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey. Quite a staggering statistic, especially when you compare it to the fact that the average marriage age for men is 27.
It is no surprise then why female participation in education takes a hit as we move from secondary school to university.
So how does this education picture play out in the “real world” when we move to the employment market? Well, for many girls, the adult life started from a young age and so participation in the “formal” labour market is not an option for many.
In total, there are 77 million workers in Nigeria, 36% are women who are mostly self-employed in the informal agriculture and retail sectors and doing smaller formal work hours. Women make up 44% of the workforce that work 1-19 hours a week and only make up 32% of the labour that work the full time 40 hours.
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This is problematic for two reasons.
Firstly, it simply means that given the way society currently rewards labour, women are not receiving as much income as men; and many times not enough to even get basics such as appropriate maternal healthcare.
Secondly, the heavy presence in the informal sector means that women are not protected in a number of ways; from health and safety, insurance, or even minimum wages.
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WOMEN ARE MISREPRESENTED IN ALL CORNERS.
Informal sector aside, when you look at women and men in the formal employment sector things are far from equal.
In academia, women only make up 24% of teachers at tertiary institutions and only 15% of professors. What does this mean for the diversity of teaching or research; and creating role models for younger girls?
In the public sector, from 2010 to 2015, 38% of employment in the civil service were women.
While the data shows that there was a significant improvement during the 2015 intake - 55% female employment - most were in lower grade jobs.
As you start from grade 01 to 14 in the civil service, there are more women employed (55%).
Once you get to grades 15-17 the percentage of female held roles drops to 48% and then by special grade (the top level in the civil service) it goes down 20%.
In the different corners of Nigeria, the same pattern holds.
In Nigeria’s booming tech space, only 30% of the firms surveyed by the Centre for Global Development had female ownership. Of the 93 firms, only 6 had a woman in a top management position and 31 firms in the sample employed no women at all.
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Even when you go to the more established political realm or specifically, lawmakers who are supposed to represent the population, you find that our female voice is missing. Looking at data from 1999 till 2015, female representation at National Parliament and State Assemblies was less than 6%. Similarly, female representation for Local Government Chairpersons and Councillors are at an abysmal 9% and 6% respectively.
It’s no surprise then that when it comes to matters of women’s rights in the National Assembly, we’re mostly met with silence or in some cases actual abuse by the lawmakers themselves without consequence.
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NIGERIA COULD HAVE BEEN A TOP 20 ECONOMY.
Anywhere you look, life is made more difficult for Nigerian women. Our unequal society has negative impacts on the welfare of women and also puts the economy in a worse position. Some countries have taken quick note of this and started working on policies to make lives better for women and boost the economy.
In Japan, “womenomics” policies were launched to increase the amount of women in formal employment. By providing better-compensated family leave, enhanced child-care availability, and setting targets for women’s representation in business leadership; Japan was able to increase the share of women in their prime working years with a job increased from 73% to 77% in 6 years.
This led to an additional 2 million women in the workforce and and according to some estimates, an increase in the growth rate of 0.5% every year - that’s an additional $25bn or equivalent to adding Ghana to Japan’s economy every 2 years.
However, the gains to an economy does not just come from the increase in the number of women that are in the formal working sector. Economic improvements arise from making the workforce more diverse as men and women compliment each other with different skills.
Research has shown that 20% of the boost in GDP from increasing the number of women in the workforce is due to gender diversity’s impact on making firms more productive.
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It's ALL ABOUT CHOICE.
So, it is clear that there are gains to increasing the female workforce but how we do it is important.
Firstly, the gap in early education and tertiary stage needs to be addressed in Nigeria. Better quality education for girls will lead to better health and economic outcomes.
The important thing to also consider is not attempting to increase the amount of women participating in the workforce without having a rethink about what the current “formal” work structure looks like. Most women will leave the workforce for a period for childbirth and homecare activities and that need to be accounted for.
Women spend an average of 26 hours a week on housework compared to 16 hours for men. Those hours are currently not valued in a similar manner as formal employment but are extremely valuable for society.
Is that value getting an equal remuneration?
In summary, a well functioning system will give women the autonomy to choose between housework and formal work without being disadvantaged. The option to come back to work after childbirth can be made smoother with flexible techniques such as remote working and better-paid leave packages.
Without structural changes and cultural shifts in the way we think and value formal work vs. housework or how we bring women back into employment after childbirth, society will continue to let itself, and more crucially, its women down.
Interested in finding out more data on Nigeria? Or want to know how data can help your business? Email the Stears Data team at stears@stearsng.com.
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