An Inside Look Into Professions “Beloved” by Uzbek Women

Source: World Bank.

By Sarvinoz Mamadjonova

Globally, gender differences in education, health and survival have almost disappeared. . According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap 2021 report,

“In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already at parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that on its current trajectory, it will take another 14.2 years to completely close this gap. In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined.”[1] 

Progress in global education and health data has also outpaced economics and politics, but there are significant implications for the future due to the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as ongoing quality of life changes based on income, geography, race, and ethnicity.[2] 

In Uzbekistan, the employment rate of women increased from 50 to 53 percent between 1990 and 2015. This figure is high compared to other low- and middle-income countries. But the increase does not reflect the complexity of classifying irregular and informal work. In particular, recent data from 2021 show that less than 40 percent of women are classified as employed. Although the proportion of women in small business occupations (including subsistence farming) grew slowly, from 21.7 percent in 2014 to 22.5 percent in 2016, there is not much information about the quality of these occupations, which is measured by earnings, labor market security and the quality of the working environment.[3] Although the employment rate of women in Uzbekistan has increased, the difficulty of accurately measuring informal work and the limited information on the quality of small business occupations means there may be issues with the quality of the employment opportunities available for women, even in formal sectors. 

Literature Review

Globally, it is much more difficult for women to find work than for men. Employed women often find themselves in vulnerable situations with poor quality work, which is less prestigious and less paid.[4] Despite this trend, the relatively technical health sector dominates among the occupations in which women are employed throughout the world, according to the ILOSTAT.[5] Around 69 percent of health professionals, such as general practitioners and nurses, are women; and about three-quarters of nurses in areas such as pathology, imaging, and pharmacy are women.[6] 

Furthermore, although the wage gap is narrowing on average, wage inequality is still intense for women. Women earn less than men on average in almost all occupations, regardless of the gender balance in that occupation.[7] Occupations with a higher proportion of men have smaller gender wage gap, measured by the female-male ratio of wages, according to a study in China.[8] These factors contribute to keeping overall female labor force participation rates low,  perhaps partially because in highly paternalistic societies, some men may prefer to forbid their wives from entering the labor market due to the lower pay available in occupations for women. Finally, there are indications that the traditional identification of part-time work and skills shortages as the economic “causes” of the gender pay gap reflects implicit sexism and cannot convincingly explain the phenomenon.[9]

Women's economic activity is lower than that of men due to prevailing stereotypes, gender segregation, and the double burden of unpaid work. In Uzbekistan, women mainly work in low-wage sectors, which leads to the wage gap.[10] According to a survey by IPMI specialists, women who work seven to eight hours a day typically spend an additional four hours each day on unpaid household duties. As a result, the typical Uzbek woman actually works 12 hours every day.[11] 

There are also social reasons for the gender gap in the Uzbek labor market. For instance, policies that claim to"protect women's rights" can sometimes be harmful to women, especially when the expenses of that "protection" are transferred to others. For example, although the state is in charge of paying maternity benefits, employers in Uzbekistan are nonetheless required to do so as well. Employers are reluctant to hire young women as a result because they are concerned about their potential future maternity leave.[12] As Irina Matvienko notes in a 2019 article, “According to the research of the International Labour Organisation, 80 percent of people in Uzbekistan prefer that a man earns money in the family, and the woman takes care of the house and children. And 93 percent of people think that a woman must perform household duties, even if her husband is unemployed.”[13]

There are also other challenges faced by Uzbek women in the labor force, such as gender stereotypes, discrimination against women in education and employment, limited access to credit and property rights, and limited participation of women in decision-making processes at all levels.[14] This type of attitude makes it harder for women to enter the private sector in particular, which is mainly led by men.[15]

Methods

The aim of this research is to define the type of positions held by women in Uzbekistan, and to investigate the industries with the highest rate of female labor force participation. This research uses quantitative descriptive statistical analysis methods and secondary data. The statistical data for analysis was used both from online and physical yearbooks compiled by the Statistics Agency of the Republic of Uzbekistan.[16] 

The study proposes three hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Women in Uzbekistan are more likely to work in low-wage sectors compared to men, leading to a wage gap between genders.

Hypothesis 2: Sectors with the highest female labor force participation rates in Uzbekistan are also the least paid industries, and women often hold the lowest-paying positions within all industries.

Hypothesis 3: There are fewer females in leadership positions compared to males, which results in a gender gap in terms of representation and decision-making power.

Furthermore, the study posits that the data collected from the statistical yearbooks of Uzbekistan will support these hypotheses. 

Data analysis 

The labor market is divided in three categories in the Statistical Yearbook of Uzbekistan: 1) older than working age, 2) at working age, and 3) younger than working age. Working age in Uzbekistan starts at sixteen years old; those who are younger than sixteen belong to the third category. The retirement age differs in Uzbekistan by gender—fifty-five for women and sixty for men; people older than these ages (per gender) belong to the first category. The largest category in the labor market is certainly the second, namely people at the working age. So, members of the labor force who are between sixteen and fifty-five for women and sixteen and sixty for men constitute the largest proportion of the labor market.[17] This is a good sign, because Uzbekistan shows an increasing trend in the size of its labor market. This is connected with fertility rate and average age for the country. The high fertility rate is the future high labor market participation rates. After two decades, today's children and young people will become the large labor force of Uzbekistan. 

Uzbekistan is a young country, not only in terms of its independence, but also in the age of its population.[18] Despite a rise in population over the years, the data shows insignificant change in recent years in all three categories of the labor market (Figure 1).[19] In 2017, the working age proportion was 60.1 percent of the total population, and in 2020 it was 58.3 percent. Similarly, the rates of the population under working age slowly changed from 9.7 percent to 10.8 percent for the respective years. The minimal change in the share of people over working age (from 30.2 to 30.9 percent) might also be due to the margin of error.

Figure 1. Structure of the labor market of Uzbekistan by years (2017-2020). 

Source: author, based on data of the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on statistics.[20]

The higher salary sectors of the Uzbek labor market are associated with lower female participation rate. This statement is supported by Figure 2. It is clear that finance and insurance have always led on wages. And female participation in that sector, while not minimal, is below gender parity, ranging from 38.2 percent to 37.4 percent in 2017 and 2020, respectively. The floor of female labor participation rate in this sector in the years analyzed was in 2019, at 34.8 percent. Construction and transportation and storage are the sectors with the lowest levels of female labor force participation for all the years, despite the fact that the income in those sectors is higher than in education or healthcare.[21]

Among the occupations with lowest average pay are accommodation and food services, which includes hotels and restaurants. Here, the female labor participation rates are higher than 50 percent for all the demonstrated years. Trade is another field dominated by Uzbek women, and the FLFPR falls only in 2020 to 49.7 percent, which is approximately 2 percent less than 2019. Information and communication are one of the sectors with an increasing share of female labor force participation, growing from 32.7 percent in 2017 to 35.2 percent in 2020. While the average salary grew in all sectors, the participation of women in highly-compensated sectors had almost the same tendency.[22]

Comparatively higher rates of female employment in educational and healthcare sectors show an obvious occupation choice of Uzbek women. Healthcare has the greatest majority FLFPR, even higher than education. The lowest rate of participation in that field was in 2018 (67.5 percent), but it quickly returned to its normal rate, a bit more than 70 percent.[23]

Figure 2. Average salary and FLFPR by sector for 2017-2020. 

Source: author, based on data of the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on statistics[24]

Results and discussion

The data indicates that women in Uzbekistan are predominantly employed in the fields of education and healthcare, with actual salaries varying by the specialty and establishment. However, regardless of the level of female participation in these fields, there remains a gender wage gap in all types of establishments.[25]

The most notable finding in the education sector is the significant negative correlation between the increasing salary of academic specialists and the proportion of females in those positions (Table 1). For example, almost all pre-school workers (96.9 percent) are women, and they earn on average just over 2 million Uzbek sums (approximately USD $207) in 2021. The salary of secondary school teachers increases to approximately USD $226 whereas the percentage of female teachers at a school remains 68 percent. The trend keeps reversing for higher education, with a dramatic drop in women's representation to 45.5 percent ,with a significant increase in salary to USD $381.[26]

Table 1 shows that in 2021 76.3 percent of healthcare and social service workers were women, but the summary data hides a complicated underlying structure. We can assume that a lion’s share of healthcare workers are employed in medical establishments such as hospitals. Out of all doctors with medical degrees, women make up 47.7 percent, while 91.2 percent of medical workers with any secondary education (such as nurses) are women. This difference in education and training translates to a significant difference in salary. Using official statistics on their salaries, doctors at the top of their earning tier receive, on average, 3,178,000 sums per month (283 USD) whereas the most experienced nurse earns 1,919,000 sums per month (171 USD).[27] 

Table 1. Average Salary and Female Participation Rates in industries with highest FLFPR for 2021

Source: FLFPR from author, based on data of the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Statistics; Salary data from an article sourced from a statistical agency.[28]

A common scholarly assumption is that the relationship between FLFPR and GDP is U-shaped, globally.[29] The U-shaped hypothesis is a stylized explanation of the relationship between economic development, usually measured as GDP per capita, and female employment. It suggests that female employment rates are high in countries with low GDP per capita and advanced economies with high GDP per capita, whereas in middle income countries the FLFPR is low. In its basic form, the hypothesis suggests that women’s employment rates are highest in poor countries, where women are responsible for their livelihoods. Employment rates fall in middle-income countries mainly due to a shift where men are more employed in industrial work. As the level of education increases alongside GDP, and fertility rates fall, demand increases in the services sector and women can enter the labor market. Although this is generally considered fact, it is not reliable across econometric data sets and methods.[30] That being said, Uzbekistan appears to be following the U-shaped labor pattern as it moves from a lower-income to middle-income state, showing a decreasing trend in FLFPR even as GDP rises. In 1991 the GDP was $13.36B with an FLFPR of 53.7 percent, whereas in 2021 the GDP increased to $69.24B, while the FLFPR declined to 44.9 percent.[31]

Another problem in the female labor market is that women rarely occupy top leadership positions. The bar graph in Figure 3 shows the personnel categories of Uzbek laborers, disaggregated by gender. One significant finding presented in this bar graph is that managers of the companies and organizations of Uzbekistan are predominantly male. Organizations report only 3 percent of women are employed as managers, in contrast to 8 percent of men, meaning that men occupy leadership positions at a rate almost three times that of women.[32]

Figure 3. Personnel  percentages by gender and economic activities in Uzbekistan in 2020.

Source: author, based on data of the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Statistics.[33]

Women are far more likely to work as specialists, with 56 percent of women in this role, compared to 32 percent of men. The gender ratio of technical and service personnel is not very large, however, women hold these positions at rates three percentage points higher than men in each category. The gender ratio of production staff contrasts from the previous two categories, with 34 percent of men employed in this category. This is twenty-four percentage points higher than female employees in the same category. The gender gap is even more than three times, meaning that the gender bias here is bigger than in managerial positions.[34] 

Figure 3 demonstrates that there are more women among specialists, technical staff and service personnel in Uzbek companies, and more men among production and managerial staff. Such distribution is possibly due to the stereotypical responsibilities of women in Uzbek society, such as that women are good at serving and caring, and men usually react negatively to a female boss in the workplace. Figure 3 also reveals a very obvious and unjust distribution in the labor force which could contribute to issues such as gender bias in decision making personnel, despite the fact that Uzbek women could become responsible and hard-working managers and leaders.

Conclusion

It has been suggested that the root of the wage gap in some sectors is gender bias in our education system.[32] The government is already tackling this problem by offering additional education opportunities to prospective female students. For instance, the government offered 300 additional spots for prospective female PhD students for 2022.[33] However, it is important to pay attention to the types of education or labor training women receive in connection with their future careers, because better career options for women are essential, as this paper demonstrates. In sectors with the highest rates of female labor force participation we saw an implicit wage gap between sexes, as FLFPR was higher for lower-paid positions (Table 1). Additionally, higher-paid sectors have lower rates of female employees even though the average FLFPR for those spheres is somewhat close to parity (Figure 2).

The next challenge revealed by this paper is the lack of women in managerial positions. Under-representation of women in managerial positions poses a significant challenge for Uzbekistan. Uzbek girls are raised with the expectation of helping their parents, particularly their mothers, from very early childhood. They are taught to be patient, responsible, and resistant to life’s challenges with the explanation that all these qualities will help them in their future married life; in order to not provoke divorce or quarrel with the family of their husband and life partner they have to put significant effort into anything they do. Are these not fundamental traits of a successful manager?

Nevertheless, the vast majority of highly qualified women are not able to gain well-deserved managerial positions in the workplace. While the main reason is their family’s resistance, a secondary reason is the inflexible work schedule of the managers in Uzbekistan. One way to resolve this challenge is adjusting the schedule of high-income jobs to be more appropriate for women workers. A more flexible schedule would allow women to remain engaged at home, because a career-oriented woman is primarily seen as a “hearth keeper” by her family. Moreover, the government can play an important role in incentivizing firms and organizations to reduce gender gaps and provide greater opportunities for women to advance. By doing so, we can create a work environment where women are valued and rewarded based on their skills and contributions, regardless of their gender.

Ultimately, addressing these challenges will require a concerted effort from all stakeholders in Uzbekistan, including government officials, employers, and civil society organizations. By working together and raising awareness about these issues, we can create a brighter future for women in the workplace and beyond.

About the Author

Sarvinoz Mamadjonova is a PhD student at Westminster International University in Tashkent. Her research is focused on advancing gender equality in Uzbekistan's various economic sectors. 

Endnotes

  1. World Economic Forum. "Global Gender Gap Report 2021." World Economic Forum, 30 March, 2021, pp. 5. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2021.pdf. 

  2. Ibid.

  3. Lombardozzi, Lorena. "The Marketisation of Life: Entangling Social Reproduction Theory and Regimes of Patriarchy through Women’s Work in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan." Review of International Political Economy, Volume 29, Issue 6, 2022. pp 1870-1893. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2021.1910063; OECD. "Job Quality." 2016. https://www.oecd.org/employment/job-quality.htm.

  4. ILO. “The Gender Gap in Employment: What’s Holding Women Back?” n.d. InfoStories. https://www.ilo.org/infostories/en-GB/Stories/Employment/barriers-women#intro. 

  5. ILOSTAT. “These Occupations Are Dominated by Women - ILOSTAT.” March 6, 2020. https://ilostat.ilo.org/these-occupations-are-dominated-by-women/.

  6. Ibid.

  7. “Lost Jobs, Stalled Progress: The Impact of the ‘She-Cession’ on Equal Pay: THE GENDER WAGE GAP IN 2020 — Fact Sheet.” 2021. IWPR #C505. Institute for Women’s Policy Research. https://iwpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Gender-Wage-Gap-in-2020-Fact-Sheet_FINAL.pdf.

  8. Bai, Wei, Zhongtao Yue, and Tao Zhou. “Jumping to Male-Dominated Occupations: A Novel Way to Reduce the Gender Wage Gap for Chinese Women.” Heliyon 9, no. 3 (March 1, 2023): e14198. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2201.02835.

  9. Gharehgozli, Orkideh, and Vidya Atal. “Revisiting the Gender Wage Gap in the United States.” Economic Analysis and Policy 66, June 1, 2020, pp. 207–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eap.2020.04.008. 

  10. Ahmedova M., and Amriddinova Sh. “Is it easy for an Uzbek woman to make a career?” Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com), 25/11/2022. https://www.uzdaily.uz/en/post/77461.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Matvienko, Irina. “Uzbekistan: Women Are Less Paid, Less Educated, Less Equal - CABAR.Asia.” CABAR.asia, November 1, 2020. https://cabar.asia/en/uzbekistan-women-are-less-paid-less-educated-less-equal. 

  13. Ibid.

  14. “Asian Development Bank 2018 Annual Report: Working Together for a Prosperous, Inclusive, Resilient, and Sustainable Asia and the Pacific.” Asian Development Bank, 2019, pp 4. https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/institutional-document/479841/uzbekistan-country-gender-assessment-update.pdf

  15. UNFPA Uzbekistan. “Businesses for Gender Equality in the Workplace,” November 4, 2021. https://uzbekistan.unfpa.org/en/news/businesses-gender-equality-workplace.

  16. “Main Indicators - Labor.” Data set. Gender Statistics. Statistics Agency Under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 2022. https://gender.stat.uz/en/main-indicators/labor.

  17. “Labor Resources (Mehnat Resurslari).” O’zbekiston Milliy Ensiklopediyasi. Davlat Milliy Nashriyoti, 2005. Retrieved April 5, 2023, from https://uzsmart.uz/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/51367.html

  18. Saidov, Akmal. “Youth Policy of Uzbekistan in Global Stage.” Uzbek Embassy, April 20, 2021. https://uzbekembassy.com.my/eng/news_press/youth_policy_of_uzbekistan_in_global_stage.html. 

  19. “Labor and Employment in Uzbekistan.” Data set. State Committee on Statistics of the Republic of Uzbekistan, (Statistical Yearbook). October 2022, pp. 117.

  20. Population change percentage: MacroTrends. “Uzbekistan Population Growth Rate 1950-2023,” https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/UZB/uzbekistan/population-growth-rate; Labor market structure: “Labor and Employment in Uzbekistan.”

  21. “Labor and Employment in Uzbekistan.”

  22. Ibid.

  23. Ibid.

  24. FLFPR: “Labor and Employment in Uzbekistan.”; Average salary: “Uzbekistan in Numbers.” Data set. State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on statistics (Statistical Yearbook). September  2022, pp. 79.

  25. Ibid.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Ibid.

  28. “Salaries by Positions - Ishhaqi.Uz,” Paylab - Salary Survey, Compare Salary, Salary Data. n.d. https://www.ishhaqi.uz/maosh-haqida/ta-lim-fan-va-tadqiqot/maktabgacha-ta-lim-tarbiyachisi.

  29. Sinha, J. N., "Dynamics of female participation in economic activity in a developing economy. World Population Conference, 1967. Belgrade 1965 UN Publications. pp. 336–37; Goldin, Claudia; “The U-Shaped Female Labor Force Function in Economic Development and Economic History” T. P. Schultz, ed., Investment in Women’s Human Capital and Economic Development, 1995 pp. 61-90; Tam, Henry. “U-shaped female labor participation with economic development: Some panel data evidence.” Economics Letters, vol. 110, no. 2, 140-142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2010.11.003. 

  30. Verick, Sher, The Puzzles and Contradictions of the Indian Labour Market: What Will the Future of Work Look Like?. IZA Discussion Paper, No. 11376. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3137507.

  31. MacroTrends. “Uzbekistan GDP 1990-2023,” n.d. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/UZB/uzbekistan/gdp-gross-domestic-product. Data from World Bank; World Bank Open Data. “World Bank Open Data,” n.d. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS?locations=UZ.

  32. “Men and Women.” State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Statistics (Statistical Yearbook). November 2022, pp 196.

  33. Ibid.

  34. Ibid.

  35. UNICEF. “Global Annual Results Report 2021: Gender Equality,” June 1, 2022. https://www.unicef.org/reports/global-annual-results-2021-gender-equality#GARRGenderReport.

  36. Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. PF-87, dated 07.03.2022, https://lex.uz/docs/5899500

ArticleYale Journal of International AffairsSpring 2023, Development, Eurasia