Asia Losing $89 Billion a Year Failing to Recognize Women: Jobs
By Shamim Adam - Sep 30, 2013 1:00 PM ET .
At a booth in one of Manila’s biggest malls, 22-year-old Vanessa Tinitigan sells butter lip gloss from the U.S. and hair extensions from South Korea, part of a business she began at 16 that has made her the family’s main breadwinner.
The self-taught entrepreneur, who also wholesales and exports fashion products, started her company, Purpektion Shop, as a schoolgirl with no formal financial education or access to funds. She now hires part-time workers to run stalls at bazaars and events.
“I struggled, nobody taught me,” said Tinitigan, who is also pursuing a degree in advertising. “Most people don’t know how to start a business and then, when the problems come, they don’t know how to fix it. Many entrepreneurs who started the same time I did are now bankrupt.”
Tinitigan represents the 1 percent of Asia’s working women who run businesses that employ staff -- less than half the rate for men -- as a lack of government support, financial illiteracy and social traditions mean they are mostly confined to lower-paid factory and service jobs, or helping till the family farm. Failure to integrate women fully into the workforce is costing the Asia-Pacific region about $89 billion a year in unrealized output, according to the United Nations.
“We can’t keep training women to be hairdressers, we need to expand their horizons because new opportunities are coming with the transformation of economies in the region,” said Shireen Lateef, senior adviser to the Asian Development Bank and architect of its gender policy framework. “You hear about the glass ceiling in developed countries. In Asia, it’s much more a sticky floor. They’re all stuck at the bottom.”
more:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-30/asia-losing-89-billion-a-year-failing-to-recognize-women-jobs.html
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