Women want work but change is needed
- A study revealed that women made up 90 per cent of the growth in Hong Kong’s labour force between 1997 and 2018, but more must be done to address the issues keeping even more from gaining a job
Much has been said about the problems facing women in the workplace. No less important is the gender imbalance in the workforce. Many women simply cannot get a job due to family duties, societal perceptions and institutional constraints.
Not only will economic development be hindered and many long-standing family and social issues perpetuated as a result, we are also not making the best of our resources to replenish the shrinking workforce in an ageing population.
The problems have been put into perspective by the research office of the Legislative Council’s secretariat. According to its study, the labour force expanded by 567,000 to 3.66 million between 1997 and 2018.
Females accounted for nine-tenths of the growth, lifting the percentage of women in the workforce from 37 per cent to 45 per cent. Encouraging as it seems, a closer analysis of the demographics revealed issues worthy of concern.
While the participation rate of women at the prime working age of 25-54 climbed from nearly 60 per cent to more than 72 per cent during the period, as many as 458,000 women were not working.