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http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/11/young-women-face-double-whammy-in-pacific-islands/

 

PACIFIC ISLANDS – YOUNG WOMEN
CONFRONT UNEMPLOYMENT, UNDER-EMPLOYMENT, TRADITIONS & SOCIAL PRESSURES

 

By Catherine Wilson 

 

BRISBANE, Australia, Nov 26 2012 (IPS) – With
youth populations growing faster than jobs in the Pacific
Islands, young women, who are also confronting social pressures
to conform to traditional gender roles, account for the highest rates of
unemployment in most countries.

Young female market vendors at
a fish stall. Female youth unemployment in South East Asia and the Pacific region is 14.2 percent. Credit:
Catherine Wilson/IPS

 

Female
youth unemployment in South East Asia and the Pacific region is 14.2 percent,
compared to 12.9 percent for males, while less than 35 percent of women aged
20-29 years in the Solomon Islands, Marshall
Islands and Samoa are
officially employed.

In Vanuatu, located west of Fiji in the South Pacific and with a population of roughly
246,000, the greatest gender-labour disparities are in urban areas, such as the
capital, Port Vila, where only 43 percent of women are employed.

Men dominate jobs in both the
private and government sectors.  Sixty-one percent of government
employees, numbering 6,500 people, are male, while only 39 percent are female.

Though the majority of
residents, known as Ni-Vanuatu, live in rural areas and practice subsistence
agriculture, rapid urbanisation has contributed to a youth unemployment rate of
9.2 percent compared to the national figure of 4.6 percent.

The number rises to 27 percent
in towns, where Ni-Vanuatu women are over-represented in jobs like cleaning,
sales and service work.

Kathy Solomon, director of the
Vanuatu Rural Development Training Centre Association, which trains young
people in vocational and life skills and promotes gender equality, told IPS
that young women face multiple challenges in securing employment, especially in
the formal sector.

“There is still a cultural
barrier set by the expectation that women will fill traditional gender roles,”
Solomon explained.  “Also, not many women are really qualified to get high
positions in the government or private sector and they are not very confident
amongst male colleagues.”

The impact of unemployment is
“evident in the high (rates) of domestic violence and abuse against women”, she
claimed.

“Men believe that because they
are the breadwinners they can do anything to women. Young women who can’t find
work often become depressed and are more likely to get involved in prostitution
and become heavy kava drinkers.”

Youth bulge in the
Pacific Islands

Worldwide, and especially in
the Pacific
Islands region, young people are three times more likely to be
out of work than adults. Amidst the fallout of the global economic crisis, the
International Labour Organisation (ILO) – which predicts youth unemployment
will continue to rise in South East Asia and the Pacific – has warned governments
to prevent against the emergence of a ‘lost generation’
who may never reap the benefits of productive, remunerated work.

The
region’s ‘youth bulge’ is a consequence of rapid population growth. 
Twenty percent of the Pacific
Islands’ population of 10 million falls between the ages of 20
and 24 years.  Regional youth unemployment is estimated at 6.6 percent,
although this figure omits those in casual, low-paid or subsistence
occupations.

The struggle to find jobs is
exacerbated by inequitable economic growth, especially in Melanesia; geographic
isolation and limited land resources in Micronesia; and narrow economies in Polynesia.

Educational curricula in many Pacific
Island states have also given priority to office-based skills,
resulting in many young people being unequipped for vocational trades or local
industries, such as tourism.

In the competition for local
jobs, young women frequently come up against the mindset that their ‘rightful
place’ is in the home, even when statistics show that female participation in
education – particularly in places like Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru,
Samoa and Tuvalu – is higher than for males.

“It might be said that female
unemployment has more to do with cultural attitudes that do not value female
participation in politics and decision-making in the community, institutions
and at the national level,” Mereia Carling, youth advisor for the Secretariat
of the Pacific Community (SPC) in Fiji, commented to IPS.

“Other aspects of gender
inequality in the education system – such as the fact that girls are often
steered toward home economics and boys toward technology – may contribute
to low female employment rates,” Carling added.

“So while girls are being sent
to school, it appears that overall traditional attitudes still determine
futures for young women.”

Tarusila Bradburgh, coordinator
of the Pacific Youth Council, predicts that changes in cultural attitudes will
take a long time, even though in countries like Fiji a large number of girls are completing school, receiving
scholarships and attending tertiary institutions.

“Young women are slowly
breaking boundaries particularly in male-dominated fields like engineering and
civil aviation, but it is slow progress,” she said to IPS. “Until mindsets and
attitudes towards women change, progress and change will be very slow.”

Other consequences of female
youth unemployment in the region include poverty, crime, alcohol and drug
addiction, prostitution and adolescent pregnancies.

The birth rate amongst 15-19
year-old girls is 138 births per 1,000 females in the Marshall Islands, 67 per 1,000 females in the Solomon Islands and 64 for every 1,000 young women in Vanuatu.  In these circumstances, women often drop out of
school and become financially dependent on their extended families if they are
unable to find jobs.

According to the United Nations
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), lost
productivity in the region due to low labour participation by women is
somewhere between the range of 42 and 47 billion dollars every year.

The SPC believes that sectors
with the potential to boost youth employment include agriculture, forestry,
fisheries, the environment, tourism and culture.

The Pacific Youth Charter,
drafted in 2006 by regional youth delegates, identifies the need to advance
entrepreneurial skills in young people and increase access to diverse job
opportunities across the Pacific.

Bradburgh added that young
women, in particular, need “to be provided with life skills training which will
help build their self-confidence and decision-making (abilities)”.

Matching education and skills
training with employment growth areas will be crucial for the next generation
to reach its full potential and contribute to development across the region.

Currently
the Cook Islands and Niue are the only Pacific
Island states likely to achieve full and productive employment
by 2015.