Women need recognition of their unpaid productive, non-productive and unaccounted works in the economy as their workload and time in non-SNA (System of National Account) activities are on average three times more than men.
Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF) raised the demand at a dialogue in the city on Thursday, citing an old study finding that value of women's unpaid non-SNA (household) work would be 76.8 per cent of GDP.
MJF Executive Director (ED) Shaheen Anam presided over the dialogue where MJF Gender Advisor Bonosree Mitra and Professor Sayema Haque Bidisha of Economics Department of Dhaka University highlighted different aspects of women's works in support of the demand.
The ED said that recognition of women's unaccounted work in GDP is necessary to achieve SDG-5 (sustainable development goal) and meet commitments given by the government in different international fora.
She, however, underlined the need for change of mind set as well as household pattern to bring the desired recognition.
Ms Bonosree Mitra highlighted the contribution of women in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and livestock as over 20 million are engaged in these sectors. She said 17 out of 23 activities in rice production are carried by women without recognition.
Citing the study findings of MJF and Centre for Policy Dialogue, she also said a female person works for about 7.7 hours on non-SNA activities on a typical day whereas a man does 2.5 hours.
She also said only the recognition can help reduce the overburden work on women as it comes from showing respect and caring.
The advisor also showed a link with women's unaccounted work and violence, and related the findings of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics that said 80 per cent women are subjected to physical violence by their spouse or close relatives and 65 per cent girls are married before the age of 18.
Dr Bidisha demanded introduction of satellite system of accounts to take measures of women's unaccounted work in the country's development agenda through a radical policy support.
She said that care work must get priority in the economic policy making and budget setting, including budget allocation, for the public services and programmes that reduce unpaid care burden.
The DU professor also demanded engagement of technical group on satellite account for the promotion and protection of gender equality and coordination with the responsible national accounting body.
A satellite account is a term developed by the United Nations to measure the size of economic sectors that are not defined as industries in national accounts.
