Bangladesh's development story over the past fifty years is full of development surprises and extraordinary resilience of the people in the face of frequent natural disasters and manmade calamities. The country's economic transformation has largely been driven by social changes, initiated by women empowerment, and providing a rare example of a neo-liberal development model under which social progress has far outstripped economic growth. In the process, the role of the state has been critical in pursuing sound macroeconomic policies, disaster management, investments in public health and education and partnerships with NGOs and civil society, along with pursuing a reasonably pro-poor growth and social policy agenda highlighting women's empowerment and grassroots activism.
With Bangladesh's vision of becoming an upper middle income country by 2031 and a high income country by 2041, the key to success will be to integrate three development dimensions covering desirable structural changes, growth to reduce income and productivity gaps (convergence), and enhanced equality. For Bangladesh, interactions between structural transformation and social development are critical since technology has radical impacts on social interactions, leading to adaptation and regeneration of social relations. These developments indicate the need for embracing a multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary view on structural transformation in Bangladesh to include institutions that mediate social outcomes such as gender relations.
In Bangladesh, although women constitute half of the population, women's labour force participation rate is only 36.4 per cent compared with 84.0 per cent for men in 2020. Women's participation in formal labour force is rising (e.g. in RMG industry), but huge gender inequalities continue to persist in the labour market in Bangladesh. Women are heavily concentrated as unpaid family workers and day labourers in the rural areas (in low productivity daily work with low wages and often concentrated in public food for work programmes) and in unpaid family businesses.
Moreover, despite a strong convergence in human capital characteristics (for example, in terms of educational attainments) since the 1990s, wages of men and women have not converged to the same extent and a sizeable gender gap persists. In Bangladesh's patriarchal society, women are assigned most of the reproductive role and they suffer from high workload and unpaid labour, lack of decision-making in the household and society and subordination, while gender-biased social norms keep most women trapped in disadvantaged situations.
As a result, women's level of employment is much lower than that of men due to factors working on both the demand and supply sides. On the supply side, women's labour market participation depends on a host of socio-economic factors, including household income, age, marital status, education, household dependency ratio and others. While, on the demand side, women employment depends on factors, such as firm level characteristics, technology, location of activities, and others. There are also some sector-specific issues that affect the expansion of women's employment in certain economic activities.
In terms of quality, women are mostly involved in low-paid and low-productivity activities and, according to the Labour Force Survey, 92 per cent of the employed women labour in 2017 are engaged in the informal economy. The outcomes in the labour market shows that women's economic empowerment in Bangladesh has to address many dimensions, e.g., patriarchy and purdah, double burden and time poverty, financial and business knowledge, gender gap in digital technology, access to networks and markets, and many socio-cultural and techno-economic constraints.
The participation in the formal economy is an important vehicle for women's economic empowerment and for raising the status of women and promoting gender equality. The regular wages and salaries, relative job security, prospects for promotion and regulated working conditions in formal employment offer significant potential benefits for women. Formal employment has the ability to increase women's access to skill development, market information, credit, technology and other productive assets, social protection, pensions and social safety nets. The benefits of women's participation in the formal economy create spillover effects on overall gender equality, productivity growth, poverty reduction and the sustainable development goals (SDGs). These are important for Bangladesh since the educational gains for women have not been matched by equal gains in their economic opportunities as many women with education are either excluded or employed in positions that do not make full use of their education and skill.
In Bangladesh, as in most other developing countries, women labour force participation rate is much lower than the men participation rate (estimated at 36.4 per cent for women compared with 84.0 per cent for men in 2020). While calculating the impact of greater women participation in the labour market in an economy, it is usually hypothesised that if women labour force participation rate can be increased to the level of the men participation rate (that is, if gender parity in labour force participation rate is ensured), this would substantially raise the overall employment level, which can be approximated by (men labour force participation rate-to-total labour force participation rate/total labour force participation rate), and hence GDP per capita would also increase by a similar magnitude. Hence, if we adjust the women labour force participation rate to the level of the men participation rate to estimate the impact of women's economic empowerment, we find that GDP per capita rises by between 0.5 to 0.7 percentage points on an average in Bangladesh which can be a substantial gain for the country.
For moving towards the cherished development vision, the key for Bangladesh will therefore be to introduce good practices for increasing women's contribution to the country's formal economy through advancing women's economic empowerment using multiple channels, such as reducing structural barriers to women's productive economic participation, removing restrictive gender norms and stereotypes, creating institutional mechanisms to assist the young women to plan their careers and ensure gender-sensitive balance between job and family responsibilities, providing non- traditional and innovative forms of employment for women, supporting private sector networks to promote gender equality in the workplace and society and other potential options.
To
The Postmaster General
Government of the People's Republic in Bangladesh
Manikganj.
Subject: Prayer for the establishment of a post office.
Sir,
We, the inhabitants of the village, Dashchira, Tepra, in the district of Manikganj, have the honour to lay before you the following prayer for favour of your kind consideration and immediate action. Ours is a big village with a population of nearly four thousand. Unfortunately, we have no post office as yet in our village. As the nearest post office stands about three miles away from our village, we are to walk a long distance to post the letters, registers, parcels and to buy post cards, envelopes, stamps etc. The situation gets worse in the rains when the village roads become submerged and the postman finds it difficult to perform his normal duties.
In the above circumstances we, therefore, pray and hope that you would be kind enough to take necessary step for setting up a branch post office in our village in order to remove the inconveniences to the villagers and for which act of kindness we shall remain ever grateful to you.
Yours faithfully
A, B, C.....and M
On behalf of the people of
Dashchira, Tepra, Shibalaya Manikganj -1850.
আসুন Passage টিতে কি বলেছে তা আগে জেনে নেইঃ একটি ফ্যাক্টারিতে একটি খুব বড় ও জটিল প্রকৃতির যন্ত্র আনা হলো। যন্ত্রটির অনেকগুলি সংযুক্ত ঢাকা ছিল যার সাহায্যে তা চলতো। এই চাকাগুলি আবার সমান আকৃতির নয়। যন্ত্রটির প্রথম দিককার চাকাগুলি বড় আকৃতির ছল আর নিচের দিকের চাকাগুলি ক্রমে ছোট ছিল। এরপর বৈদ্যুতিক সুইচগুলো অন করলে চাকাগুলি একসাথে ঘুরে তার উপর অর্পিত দায়িত্ব পালন করতো। দর্শনার্থীরা এসে যন্ত্রটির বড় বড় চাকাগুলির প্রশংসা করতো। কিন্তু কারো চোখেই ছোট চাকাগুলি পড়তো না। একদিন ছোট চাকা বললো, আমার দিকে কেউ তাকায় না । আরো বললো যে আমি এতোই ছোট আমি মনে হয় কোনো কাজের না। কেন আমি শুধু শুধু সময় নষ্ট করছি? আমাকে বিশ্রামে পাঠিয়ে দেয়া হোক। তো এরপর ছোট চাকা কাজ করা থেকে নিজেকে বিরত রাখলো। তারপর কি হয়েছিল? ছোট চাকাটি দেখলো যে তার পাশে থাকা আরেকটি ছোট চাকাও নড়তে পারছিল না। এভাবে বড় চাকাগুলি পর্যন্ত স্থবির হয়ে পুড়ো যন্ত্রটিই বিকল হয়ে পড়লো। এই হলো Passage টির অনুবাদ। আসুন এবার প্রশ্নের সমাধানে চলে যাইঃ
a) With so many small and big parts, the machine was driven to work.
b) All the wheels begin to run and soon the machine starts the work when the electricity was turn on.
c) Visitor's negligence upon the tiny wheels made them angry.
d) After the halt of the tiny wheels, all other wheels could not move and as a result the whole machine come to a half.
e) Everybody's contribution is important for a noble job.
Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan in 1971.
Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan in 1971.
= Bangladesh became independent in 1971 from Pakistan.
বাক্যের অর্থঃ ১৯৭১ সালে বাংলাদেশ পাকিস্তানের নিকট থেকে স্বাধীন হয়।
He did not speak loudly and clearly.
He did not speak loudly and clearly.
= He did not speak loud and clearly.
বাক্যের অর্থঃ সে জোরে ও স্পষ্ঠভাবে কথা বলেনি।
You should have not done the work.
You should have not done the work.
= You should not have done the work.
বাক্যের অর্থঃ কাজটি করা তোমার উচিৎ হয়নি।
Only I and my friend were present there.
Only I and my friend were present there.
= Only my friend and I were present.
বাক্যের অর্থঃ যেখানে কেবল আমি ও আমার বন্ধু উপস্থিত ছিলাম ।
I ate a little food and felt very bad.
I ate a little food and felt very bad.
= I ate little food and felt very bad.
বাক্যের অর্থঃ আমি কম খেয়ে খুব অস্বস্থি বোধ করেছিলাম ।
Come about
Come about (ঘটা): The relative speed with which emancipation came about.
Let down
Let down (নামানো; পড়তে দেয়া): Mili let down her hair.
Set aside
Set aside (সময় বা অর্থ সঞ্চয় করে রাখা; জমানো): The bank expected to set aside $500 million for restructuring.
Neither head nor tail
Neither head nor tail (কোনো কিছুই বুঝতে না পারা): I couldn't make heads or tails or her reaction.
Head and shoulders
Head and shoulders (অন্যদের তুলনায় সুবিধাজনক অবস্থানে থাকা): They stand head and shoulders above the competition.