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PHL ranks third in women’s participation in workforce — MasterCard


The Philippines ranked third in the Asia Pacific region for women’s participation in the workforce having over 70 women workers for 100 men in the regular workforce, a study showed.
 
In the latest MasterCard Worldwide Women’s Advancement Index, scores are indexed to 100 indicating how close or far women in each country were achieving socio-economic parity with men.
 
Among the 14 Asia-Pacific countries surveyed, New Zealand ranked first (77.8 Index Score), followed by Australia (76.0), the Philippines (70.5), Singapore (67.5) and Taiwan (64.7), respectively.
 
The others were Vietnam (64.4), Hong Kong (63.3), China (61.5), Thailand (61.3), Indonesia (56.5), and Malaysia (54.3). India (38.0), Japan (48.1) and Korea (49.7) scored the lowest.
 
 “The Index is comprised of three main indicators which are derived from additional sub-indicators: Employment (Workforce Participation, Regular Employment), Education (Secondary Education, Tertiary Education) and Leadership (Business Owners, Business Leaders, Political leaders),” MasterCard said in a statement on Thursday.
 
PHL highs and lows
 
A breakdown of the index scores shows that access to education is the area where the Philippins had the highest scores: 107.5 for secondary education and 1128.4 in tertiary education. These are above those of  Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, and India. 
 
Ahead of the Philippines in the education criteria are Malaysia (in both secondary and tertiary education) while Thailand and Australia have more women in teriary education than the Philippines.
 
The Philippines' lowest scores were in Leadership: 33.3 for Business Owners and 28.5 for Political Leaders; but scored high in Business Leaders (114.3).
 
The Philippines also had some of the lowest scores in the Employment sub index. The aggregate in this is 76.7, which was the result of the 63.0 score for Workforce Participation pulling down the 93.4 score for Regular Employment. Only Indonesia, Malaysia and India scored lower in this sub index while 10 other countries surveyed did better.
PHL scores high in education but low in Leadership and in Employment in the 2013 MasterCard Worldwide Index of Women's Advancement survey. (screengrab from Mastercard website)
Region-wide
 
Although more women have access to job opportunities and tertiary education in Asia Pacific region, there are still barriers preventing them from taking top positions in the government or private sector, MasterCard noted.
 
“Their representation in leadership roles in business and government is still low across the region. All but one market – New Zealand - had fewer than 50 women business/government leaders for every 100 male business/government leaders, according to the scores of the latest index,” the statement read.
 
In a separate MasterCard Consumer Purchasing Priorities – Education survey, 17.1 percent of women believe that their societal standing will be better if there is more “affirmative action” done in their favor.
 
Likewise, 13.7 percent think that more seats in parliament would advance women’s role in society.
 
Most Australian, Japanese and South Korean women believe that parental childcare entitlement is crucial to improve women’s social standing.
 
Among Chinese, Malaysian and Taiwanese women, business opportunities was seen as the most pressing need to achieve gender parity in their societies.
 
“There is still a lot to be done in our region to enhance the role of women across all aspects of society; there are still too few women leaders in government and business, and not enough women-owned and run businesses,” noted Georgette Tan, head of communications in MasterCard Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa.
 
“There are standout markets which have repeatedly improved in terms of advancing opportunities and access for women, but more needs to be done,” she added.  — ELR, GMA  News
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