Experiences of women as workers: a study of construction workers in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, women's mobility is culturally constrained and women need to negotiate with patriarchy in order to join the male dominated labour market outside the home. A large number of men continue to be highly resistant to women's paid employment, partly because of the social norm of purdah and partly because they tend to consider it a shameful reflection on their ability as breadwinners, and hence on their masculine identity. While surmounting these constraints, women enter into full-time paid employment. However, the treatment of both men and women is not equal and this is particularly so in the construction sector. Thus, engaging in paid employment is not an easy decision to make and once women eventually join the labour force they experience mixed outcomes. It appears that paid work, on the one hand, confers on women greater economic autonomy and mobility and, on the other, exposes them to different sorts of deprivation and exploitation. In investigating these issues, the narratives of female construction workers were used to describe their experiences.