O V E R V I E WSocial Protection of Women in

Enterprise Development in ASEAN

4 December 2014Manila, Philippines

Outline

• Situation of Women in Enterprise Development in ASEAN• Social Protection in ASEAN• Implications of Economic Integration• The Way Forward

Situation of women in MSMEs

•Women-run enterprises are hailed as growth engines of ASEAN

*Fastest growing from among regions of the world

Fast-growing number of women in SMEs in ASEAN

Female Male

Indonesia (2007) 8.1% 0.27%

Malaysia (2008) 9.7% 7.43%

Philippines (2007) 2.5% N.A

Singapore (2009) 4.2% N.A

Thailand (2008) 2.3% .31%

Vietnam (2004) 42.5% 40.93%

Source: Mastercard, 2010 as cited by the International Finance Corporation World Bank Group, 2011

ASEAN women’s enterprises

• Majority are micro enterprises, likely situated in vulnerable sectors of the economy

*Subcontracted or in the last peg of global value chains *Run by informal employers/workers, self-employed or own account, unpaid family workers

• Dual and contradictory character of vulnerable employment *Source of income vs. source of exploitation as firms attempt to contain costs

‘race to the bottom’ phenomena

Situation of women in MSMEs

• Engaged in traditional, low-income generating activities•Mostly home-based/ residential, unregistered, hardly paying

direct taxes, uninsured and located both in urban and rural areas with mostly poor constituents • Place of business have poor structures/facilities; condition of

safety in the workplace is very uncertain

Situation of women in MSMEs

• Started the enterprise because of “push” factors, e.g. poverty, unemployment, daily subsistence needs or for precautionary motives rather than market opportunities • The enterprise was chosen because the economic activity is

characterized by ease of entry and exit and requires low capital, skill and technology to operate• Capital is usually drawn from savings or borrowed from relatives,

informal lenders/ loan sharks• Little or no social protection in times of emergency/ bankruptcy

Situation of women in MSMEs

• Constrained by* Demands of household/ family care* Low levels of formal education * Lack of access to financial resources* Low ability to establish social networks to expand * Laws and biases that discriminate against women

Social Protection • All interventions from public, private and voluntary organisations and informal

networks which support communities, households and individuals in their efforts to prevent, manage and overcome risks and vulnerabilities’ (Shepherd et al., 2004)

• Social protection refers to policies and actions which enhance the capacity of poor and vulnerable people to escape from poverty and enable them to better manage risks and shocks. Social protection measures include social insurance, social transfers and minimum labour standards.

• Devereux and Sabates-Wheeler’s (2004) transformative social protection conceptual framework highlights that in addition to being protective (providing relief); preventive (averting deprivation); and/or promotive (enhancing incomes and capabilities); social protection interventions may also be transformative (i.e. addressing concerns of social equity and exclusion which often underpin people’s experiences of chronic poverty and vulnerability

Social Protection

• Social assistance * universal rights based programs* non-contributory; being financed from tax revenues or grants by donors* may be means tested to target the most vulnerable and needy* publicly managed or administered by the government or its agencies

• Social insurance * contributory for future income security * programs that provide for contingencies of unemployment, sickness,

maternity, employment injury, pensions for old age, invalidity and survivorship

Social Protection

• Labour market interventions *programs designed to protect workers, or help people secure employment such as minimum wage legislation, employment services, skills development and training, or special work programs

• Community based social protection *traditional or ‘informal’ ways of providing social protection within households, groups and networks

Expenditure for social protection

Expenditure for Social Protection

• About 1.15% of GDP for women, 1.6% of GDP For men• Spending of OECD countries is 14% of GDP (ILO 2010)• Results suggest that despite gains in GDP some countries, they have not

correspondingly strengthened their social protection systems• Existing programs tend to be almost entirely donor-funded, with

limitations in coverage and quality.

Predominantly social insurance, with women receiving fewer benefits and coverage

Predominantly social insuranceCountry National

StrategySocial Insurance

Health Insurance

Universal Community Based

Health Facility

Cambodia Indonesia Lao PDR Myanmar Philippines Thailand Vietnam

Predominantly social insurance

• Although some countries have relatively well- developed social insurance systems (Thailand and, to a lesser extent, Indonesia, the Philippines and Viet Nam), many social security schemes typically only cover formal sector workers in towns and cities• Vast majority of those in the informal economy are left without any form

of social protection• % of expenditures and beneficiaries on health insurance, unemployment

insurance and severance payments are much lower for women than for men; maternity benefits may not be widespread• Validates relatively low wages of women and predisposition to

vulnerable employment

Social assistance and services

Country Social Asssistance Social Services

CCT Subsidies Social pension

Feeding programs

Public works

Cambodia Indonesia Lao PDR Myanmar Philippines Thailand Vietnam

Social assistance and services

• Except for Thailand, most countries in the region still have a considerable way to go to achieve the standard laid out in the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Social Protection Floor (SPF) Initiative.

• Indonesia and the Philippines have sizeable conditional cash transfer and health insurance programmes reaching an ever-growing proportion of the population.

• Viet Nam has introduced free healthcare for poor families and all young children, while its poverty programming provides a basic income for much of the population living under the most impoverished conditions.

• Less wealthy countries, some of them emerging from decades of conflict, have made less progress

• Existing programmes tend to be almost entirely donor-funded, with limitations in coverage and quality.

Social assistance and services

• Social assistance approximates that of men but women are still moderately disadvantaged• % of expenditure and beneficiaries of social assistance programs

much lower than social insurance programs• Social transfers have highest % of expenditure; includes mostly

child protection, assistance to the elderly, health assistance, disaster relief, and disability programs .

Labour market programs do not figure prominently• Accounts only for about 5% of total social protection expenditure. • SPIs are relatively small and indicative of gender inequality in

informal employment

Some good practices

• Philippines: the 4Ps conditional cash transfer explicitly includes gender considerations in its design; convergence strategy in conjunction with two other major government programmes• Thailand: regional and even international leader in providing social health

insurance, which includes maternal healthcare as well as extensive coverage for HIV-related treatment and services.• Philippines and Thailand now allow informal workers to voluntarily participate

in contributory social security systems, although uptake has been low • For older women: initiatives on universal health coverage and the recent

extension of pension coverage in Thailand

Some good practices• Welfare fund for home workers in Tamil Nadu, India, administered

departmentally through a tax levied on the production of exports. The fund’s goal is to provide medical care, education for children, housing, water supply and recreational facilities, basic social security• Creation of the Homenet network, consisting of NGOs, government

agencies and home workers’ groups to ensure the protection of home workers through the provision of safety nets, social welfare and compulsory registration, skills training• The Indonesian government has been very active on implementing policies

for MSME for the creation of credit schemes and promotion of capital access for MSMEs in collaboration with local banks.

Constraints

• Resources* Poorer countries have less fiscal space; weaker human resource bases

for effective implementation of social protection programs* Level of benefits provided is often insufficient to meet even basic needs

• Governance and coordination* Schemes are fragmented and lack coordination* Same benefits package, targeting same beneficiaries, duplication * Inadequate data and weak targeting mechanisms * High rates of leakage to the non-poor * Under-coverage of the poor contributing to overall low impact

Constraints

• Monitoring and evaluation: * Data are scarce across the region, not sex- and age-disaggregated, no central

and unified database * Little is known about the needs of specific vulnerable groups.* Few schemes have complaints and feedback mechanisms or use participatory

approaches to involve beneficiaries in evaluating impact.

• Gender-blind policies and programs* Few social protection strategies are informed by a gender lens* Limited gendered vulnerability assessments and implementation deficits* Limited ender disaggregated impact indicators

Implications of economic integration

• Changes in the structure of production of a country, which will impact women in MSMEs differently• There will be benefits but also heightened income and gender

inequalities

Way Forward

Way Forward

Way Forward

Way forward

Way forward

• Accelerate women’s access to the formal economy by increasing opportunities and upgrading skills for women engaged in economic activities• Universalize social insurance benefits, such as health insurance and

pensions. Providing women with greater access to employment guarantee schemes or skills development and training could also help• Collection, analysis, and dissemination of sex-disaggregated data are

essential to ensure gender considerations in designing, implementing, and monitoring social protection programs

ASEAN level• Advocate for the establishment of social protection floors (SPF) and

more comprehensive social security systems among AMS in the framework of economic integration by 2015;• Bring together key actors throughout the region to engage in an

agenda-setting dialogue on basic social guarantees • Invite the participation of capable partners in the process of drafting a

gender-responsive Plan of Action and developing a monitoring framework for measuring progress in extending social protection in ASEAN;• Address data and knowledge gaps; establish a community of

practitioners and invite partners dedicated to gender-responsive social protection and MSME development

AMS Level• Ensure social protection among women entrepreneurs and their dependents through specially

designed social insurance schemes, social assistance, as well as extension and reform of formal sector social insurance

• Support and facilitate upgrading of micro enterprises to the formal sector; including skills development, access to finance, technology and social networking

• Strengthen institutional capacity of national social development agencies in formulating and implementing effective and efficient policies and facilitate greater cross sectoral cooperation on social protection issues

• Support the development of gender- responsive budgeting to include developing good practice guidance and exploring incentive-based funding for local governments undertaking gender-responsive budgeting.

• Monitor on-going social protection programs through regular household income and expenditure surveys. Furthermore, independent impact evaluations of social protection programs, including monitoring gender impact, are critical for developing informed policies.

• Support innovative programming with embedded monitoring and evaluation systems that recognise particular vulnerabilities of women entrepreneurs and their dependents

Action areas

• Measuring the informal sector; • Enhancing the micro-entrepreneur’s potential; • The creation of and capacity-building among informal sector organizations; • Infrastructure, job creation and living conditions; • Reforming training policies and systems; • Enhancing workers’ social protection; • Reforming legal frameworks; • Assessing macroeconomic policies

Way forward

• Community based child care alternatives• Health education and intervention• Local promotion• Welfare funds for minimum benefits: specific health benefits, related to

the nature of the sector, maternity benefits; scholarships for children to go to school, old-age pension, life insurance; child care facilities• Voluntary schemes: savings, credit and micro insurance• Sectoral organizing• Diversification of skills