Women are underrepresented in Tajikistan’s financial sector, argues Mukhayo Kamolova, a CABAR.asia School of Analytics participant. She believes that this is due to the conservative mindset of society, a significant imbalance between women and men, the low level of education of the population that puts obstacles in the professional development of women, and the existing market mechanisms that do not work correctly. In addition, there are certain problems that create barriers to women’s professional development.
National Bank of Tajikistan. Photo: ozodi.org
Contrary to global trends, it is still difficult for women to build a career in the finance sector in Tajikistan. Note that a number of studies have shown that women in leadership positions are perceived to perform just as well as men. According to the 360-degree reviews study, women outperform men in 17 out of 19 qualities that distinguish excellent leaders from poor or mediocre ones.
In addition, those few women whose work is related to finance do their jobs effectively and play a significant role in advancing the business among their colleagues.
There are no statistics on the number of women in the financial sector. However, in 2021, according to the National Association of Business Women of Tajikistan (NABWT), women made up only 21.2% of the total amount of entrepreneurs; among individual entrepreneurs, women accounted for 19.9%; among farmers — 22.1% and only 12.1% of all registered legal entities led by women. Of the total population of Tajikistan aged 16 and over, only 1.6% of women are involved in entrepreneurial activity, while men make up 5.8% — nearly a four-fold higher percentage.
The banking sector plays an important role in the economy of the country. Unfortunately, in Tajikistan, only a few women are in decision-making positions in banks and large banking sectors. Statistics on the number of women in senior positions in financial institutions are not available. The website of the National Bank of Tajikistan provides only a list of banks and other credit institutions, which is unfortunately not up to date. Our own analysis of open source data showed that only 2 out of 17 banks in Tajikistan are managed by women (women as chairpersons), and only five banks have several women on their Supervisory Boards.
Many justify this situation by arguing that employers do have the will to hire female candidates and consider women as potential employees. However, qualified women who have the necessary education and skills are still in short supply, so employers have to hire men. There are many reasons for the lack of female staff. Still, the main ones are the absence of necessary higher education, financial literacy, and conservative ideologies which do not allow women to build their careers in the so-called "masculine professions". There is an element of truth in these words, as some employers nowadays pay attention to the quality and efficiency of work rather than the gender of the employee.
Tajikistan ranks 114th in the Global Gender Gap Report 2022 with an index of 0.663 out of 1. It ranks 107th in Economic Participation and Opportunity with an index of 0.609 out of 1, and 117th in Educational Attainment with an index of 0.942 out of 1.
In Central Asia, overall progress in closing the gender gap remains at 69.1 per cent, unchanged from 2021, according to this report. It will take 151 years at this rate to narrow the gap. In 2022, Central Asia was ranked fourth among eight regions after North America, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Regional performance 2022, by subindex
(World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2022)
Note: Population is a weighted average for the 146 economies included in the 2022 Global Gender Gap Report. Percentages indicate that the gender gap is closing.
Central Asia is close to gender parity: 98.8%, according to the educational subindex. And Tajikistan's gender gap index (94.2%) in enrolment in secondary and higher educational institutions has not yet been eliminated, leaving Tajikistan to lag behind the other Central Asian countries by this indicator.
Closing the gender gap in the country's financial sector and ensuring equal opportunities for women is projected to have significant economic benefits. In addition, closing the gender gap will contribute to the stability of the banking system and enhance economic growth.
Statistics support our point: women repay their loans better than men, but in Tajikistan only 20 per cent of borrowers are women.
Of course, the state also benefits from women building their careers and going into business. Families, where both spouses work, have higher incomes and consequently pay more taxes. Thanks to women's inclusion in the labour market, GDP in Eastern Europe and Central Asia increased by at least US$1.1 trillion, which is 23 per cent of the region's annual GDP.
Nearly always, at all times, women with careers in the financial sector have faced constraints, which in particular are strongly manifested in volatile, crisis situations, like during the Covid-19 pandemic.
While even in good times, women entrepreneurs are more vulnerable than men to economic hardship, the situation with the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened this. When women earn less and have fewer assets, it is more difficult for them to maintain solvency. The financial impact of this crisis has already shown the need to support women entrepreneurs to become resilient.
Women have more time constraints, as they carry a greater burden of family responsibilities, to successfully and effectively respond to the crisis. There is no country in the world where men spend more time than women on family obligations. Especially in Central Asia, women spend more time in non-paid work than men. When schools were closed because of the pandemic, people stayed at home and the number of ill people increased, it was women who had to devote their time to them.
Another reason preventing women from advancing in this field, and causing them to quit their jobs, is the gender pay gap. In Tajikistan, men earn nearly 51 per cent and 46.1 per cent more than women respectively, which demonstrates that women's work is undervalued.
Women are paid less: reports show that average monthly wages (regardless of the type of work) were consistently higher for men than for women in all sectors of the economy. Across the economy, women earned 60% of what men did earn in 2017 or 2018.
The principle of equality is enshrined in the Constitution (Article 17), according to which men and women have equal rights. The Government of Tajikistan is taking a number of measures to ensure observance of this norm.
In particular, Tajikistan adopted the law on "Guarantees of Equal Rights for Men and Women and Equal Opportunities in the Exercise of such Rights” (2005), and the law on "Equality and elimination of all forms of discrimination" (2022), both of which legally guarantee equal rights for men and women in social, political, cultural as well as any other field.
"2021-2030 National Strategy for Empowerment of Women in the Republic of Tajikistan" was adopted by decree of the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan (2021), chapter 4 of which is devoted to supporting the development of female entrepreneurship.
President Emomali Rahmon has repeatedly pointed to the importance of supporting women in his speech and has adopted various strategies; annual quotas are allocated for girls from rural regions to enter the country's universities on a budgetary basis.
In his message to Parliament, President Emomali Rahmon emphasized that, in order to achieve the goals of Tajikistan's National Development Strategy for 2030, up to 30 per cent of civil servants and up to 25 per cent of managerial staff should be composed of talented women and girls, and the "State Programme of Education, Selection and Placement of Managerial Staff from Women and Talented Women for 2023-2030" should be developed and presented to the Government within three months.
However, although women today face fewer legal constraints than a decade ago and compared to the rest of Central Asia, there is still room for improvement in the legal and regulatory environment.
Women, Business and Law Index score (2022)
Source: World Bank.
Note: A score of 100 means that women do not face legal constraints. The index is structured around eight themes (mobility, workplace, pay, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, assets and pension) that measure the extent to which women face legal constraints at different stages of their lives.
Nevertheless, gender equality is not fully ensured by the country's legislation and there are significant gaps in ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and girls.
Based on all of the aforementioned, analysis of sources, and observations, the author proposes the following recommendations:
— Establish a Banking Academy under the National Bank of Tajikistan, which would prepare young people to develop the financial sector further, improve the financial literacy of the population, and train girls with the necessary skills to work in the banking industry;
— organize a Banker's School, which would train female finance students in all the nuances of working in the banking sector, and prepare them to work in financial institutions after graduation;
— conduct awareness campaigns in all regions of the country: courses for different segments of the population in order to increase financial literacy;
— reform Tajikistan's legal framework: eliminate all types of restrictions for women to work in various fields.
— to take appropriate preventive measures against harassment in the workplace, as it is one of the reasons women leave the workplace.
— Public literacy needs to be promoted so that parents realize the importance of girls' education and pay special attention to it.
In recent years, very few women have built careers in the financial sector, especially in leadership positions despite the fact that the role of women in life, including in business, continues to expand and change in the global community. The few women in leadership positions have shown themselves to be competent, responsible leaders. In this regard, more women should be involved in the management of the financial sector, and young girls should be trained to develop further in the sector.