Country’s 56.9 per cent women population with working age are not there in education, employment and training (NEET) category, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) has said.
The civil society think-tank revealed the information on Wednesday during a dialogue on 'Promoting Female in Bangladesh for Realising Demographic Dividends' at a city hotel.
Mustafizur Rahman, a distinguished fellow of the CPD, said 56.9 per cent women of the age between 15 to 65+ belong to the NEET category.
Mr Rahman said this while presenting the keynote paper on 'Realising the Demographic Dividend in Bangladesh Promoting Female Labour Force Participation' at the programme.
The fellow came up with the figure referring to the facts of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). "It's a matter of concern but also an opportunity if Bangladesh can utilize the potentiality," he said.
According to the CPD findings, women's contribution to the country's GDP is 20 per cent as 77 to 87 per cent of their labour participation in economy and GDP remains unaccounted, reports UNB.
Though the trend in female labour force participation (FLFP) is increasing and experiencing some ups and downs in the graph, the women participation is significantly lower than that of male participation.
The female participation to the GDP was 36.3 per cent in 2016-17 while the male contribution stood 80.5 per cent, according to the CPD findings.
Mr Rahman also said the average real wage decline for male was 1.9 per cent and that of female was by 3.8 per cent from 2015-16 to 2016-17, while the national real average wages fell by 2.5 per cent.
"Occupational segregation is on the rise in rural areas as new jobs created in rural areas are being taken more by men," he added.
In professions, he said, women generally do not go to the top level because of glass ceiling caused by discrimination.
"If within 5 years, female labour force participation rise by 11 per cent on average, this would add one percentage point each year to the Bangladesh GDP," he said.
Mentioning the women belong to the NEET category is a big wastage of human resource, Mr Rahman said it needs to be looked carefully to make them labour force worthy and market worthy.
Dr Shamsul Alam, Senior Secretary of General Economics division of Bangladesh Planning Commission, was present as the chief guest.