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Young, Educated and Ready to Work?

Revealing the structural and gendered barriers to the agency

of university students in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Roos Douma

MSc. International Development Studies

Graduate School of Social Sciences

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Master’s Thesis

Young, Educated and Ready to Work?

Revealing the structural and gendered barriers to the agency

of university students in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Name Roos Douma

Student Number 10068902

Email douma.roos@gmail.com

Course MSc. International Development Studies Supervisor Dr. Nicky R. M. Pouw

Second Reader Mw. Elizabeth Maber

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Acknowledgements

This journey has been the toughest but most rewarding and I could not have succeeded without the support of many people whom I owe my thanks.

First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Nicky Pouw for her guidance throughout the writing process. Whenever I got lost in the intense process of quantitative data analysis, she brought me back on the right track. I would also like to thank her for the opportunity to carry out my research in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Although it took a while to acclimatize to this bustling city, the kindness of the people made it a heart-warming and enriching experience.

I would also like to thank the people in Sri Lanka who made it possible to carry out my research. Without the people from CENWOR it would have taken a lot more time to get familiar with the topic in the Sri Lankan context. I want to thank Savithri for her warm welcome and for providing me with all the resources accessible at CENWOR and both Professor Jayaweera and Professor Gunawardena for all the insights they shared with me, build on their years of valuable experience. Also I want to thank CEPA, who arranged all the formal matters for my stay in Sri Lanka as a researcher.

As my research was depending on the access to the University of Colombo, I want to thank Professor Medis, who gave me her approval as acting Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo and all the Deans of the different faculties of the universities who gave me their full support. Finally, I could not have carried out my research without the help of Thilini Jayatilake and Supun Hansaka, who introduced me to the university practices and made it possible for me to emerge in the environment in order to engage with the students and hear their stories.

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Abstract

Recent work in the field of women’s empowerment in Sri Lanka is strongly focused on women’s participation in the labour market in which education of women is mainly used in terms of enrollment rates in different education levels. To really include university education as an instrument for the empowerment of women it is needed to include not only a certain static educational level, but also the experiences and choices that are made by the students in this period which influence their occupational outcomes. Perceiving economic empowerment for students mainly as their educational and occupational agency, I try to answer the question in what way different barriers are able to constrain this agency.

To answer this question, I used data collected by questionnaires which based on Kabeer’s theory of empowerment incorporated both the agency of the students and the possible barriers they could face. By using a 5 point Likert-scale I was able to measure the students’ attitudes towards different statements. Focusgroups with students and interviews with both students and professors were used to find out more about the student’s agency and to create a whole picture. The data shows that systemic structures form a barrier to the students’ agency and that girls are more sensitive to these structures than boys, which can be explained from the patriarchal society from which the systemic structures derive. Gendered hierarchies within the society form a barrier to women’s access, their self-esteem and their decision-making power. This impact on their agency has consequences for their choice of degree and in line with this, for their future employment.

Looking more in-depth into the relationship between education employment gives the opportunity to get a grasp on the structures causing women’s disempowerment and creates the opportunity to create solutions that tackle the root causes instead of treating the symptoms.

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ... 1

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 3

2.1INTRODUCTION ... 3

2.2GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT:WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT ... 3

2.3STRUCTURES AND BARRIERS ... 9

2.4GENDERED CHOICES ... 10

2.5CONCEPTUAL SCHEME ... 11

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN ... 13

3.1RESEARCH QUESTIONS ... 13

3.2UNIT OF ANALYSIS ... 14

3.3METHODOLOGY ... 14

3.4SAMPLING ... 15

3.5METHODS ... 15

3.6METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS ... 18

3.7CHALLENGES AND LIMITATIONS ... 19

3.8ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ... 20

3.9CONCLUSION ... 21

CHAPTER 4: EMPIRICAL CONTEXT ... 22

4.1INTRODUCTION ... 22

4.2SRI LANKA’S DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS ... 22

4.3EMPLOYMENT ... 25

4.4EDUCATION ... 26

4.5PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY AND GENDER ROLES ... 29

4.6RESEARCH LOCATION:COLOMBO ... 33

4.7CONCLUSION ... 34

CHAPTER 5: AGENCY ... 36

5.1INTRODUCTION ... 36

5.2SKILLS AND RESOURCES ... 36

5.2SELF-ESTEEM ... 41

5.3DECISION-MAKING ... 46

5.5EMPOWERED YET? ... 52

5.6CONCLUSION ... 53

CHAPTER 6: STRUCTURAL BARRIERS TO AGENCY ... 54

6.1INTRODUCTION ... 54

6.2STRUCTURES ... 54

6.3STRUCTURES THAT ENABLE AGENCY REGARDING EDUCATION ... 58

6.4STRUCTURES THAT ENABLE AGENCY REGARDING EMPLOYMENT ... 66

6.5CONCLUSION ... 73

CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION ... 74

7.1 INTRODUCTION ... 74

7.2EMPIRICAL FINDINGS ... 74

7.3REFLECTION ON THEORY ... 76

7.4REFLECTION ON THE CONCEPTUAL SCHEME ... 77

7.5REFLECTION ON METHODOLOGY ... 78

7.6RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ... 79

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BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 81

ANNEX ... 85

APPENDIX I OPERATIONALIZATION TABLE ... 85

APPENDIX IIQUESTIONNAIRE (ENGLISH) ... 86

APPENDIX IIIQUESTIONNAIRE (SINHALESE) ... 92

APPENDIX IVINTERVIEW GUIDE ... 100

APPENDIX VLIST OF PARTICIPANTS IN INTERVIEWS AND FOCUSGROUPS ... 102

List of Tables

Table 4.1 Unemployment rate by level of education (third quarter of 2015) ... 25

Table 4.2 Number of students qualified and admitted to higher education by GCE stream in the year 2013/2014 ... 28

Table 4.3 Student enrollment University of Colombo year 1-4 per faculty and sex - 2014. ... 34

Table 5.1 Students by faculty and gender. ... 37

Table 5.2 Students’ job experience by gender and faculty. ... 38

Table 5.3 Crosstabulation - Income category and faculty enrolled. ... 41

Table 5.4 Chi square test – Confidence to be part of the student union/society by male and female students (n = 225). ... 44

Table 5.5 Crosstabulation – Percentages of male and female students’ self-esteem regarding employment (different statements) (n = 226). ... 45

Table 5.6 Crosstabulation and Chi-square test - Faculty enrolled in and confidence in having the skills necessary for the private sector (n = 181). ... 46

Table 5.7 Chi-Square test – Gender and earning a lot of money as reason for degree choice (n = 224). ... 49

Table 5.8 Chi-square test result – Female and male students agreeing or disagreeing on a particular statement (n = 217 and 224). ... 51

Table 6.1 Pattern Matrix Formal Institutions ... 55

Table 6.2 Pattern Matrix Informal Institutions ... 56

Table 6.3 Pattern Matrix Markets ... 57

Table 6.4 Pattern Matrix Agency regarding education ... 59

Table 6.5 Standard Multiple Regression of Structure Variables on Agency Regarding Optional Education Activities of All Students (n = 211 – 231) ... 61

Table 6.6 Standard Multiple Regression of Structure Variables on Agency Regarding Optional Education Activities of Female Students (n = 138 – 152) ... 62

Table 6.7 Standard Multiple Regression of Structure Variables on Agency Regarding Education in General of All Students (n = 207 – 227) ... 64

Table 6.8 Standard Multiple Regression of Structure Variables on Agency Regarding Education in General of Female Students (137 – 151) ... 65

Table 6.9 Standard Multiple Regression of Structure Variables on Decision-making Regarding Employment of All Students (n = 207 – 227) ... 68

Table 6.10 Standard Multiple Regression of Structure Variables on Decision-making Regarding Employment of Female Students (n = 137 – 152) ... 69

Table 6.11 Standard Multiple Regression of Structure Variables on Self-Esteem Regarding Employment of All Students (n = 207 – 227) ... 71

Table 6.12 Standard Multiple Regression of Structure Variables on Self-Esteem Regarding Employment of Female Students (n = 137 – 151) ... 72

List of Figures

Figure 2.1 Conceptual scheme of the interplay between structures and agency ... 12

Figure 4.1 Map of Sri Lanka ... 24

Figure 5.1 Self-esteem among female and male students in different educational areas measured by scale mean (n = 223). ... 42

Figure 5.2 Scale percentages for reasons why male and female students choose their degree (n = 222). ... 48

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List of Abbreviations

CARE = Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere CENWOR = Centre for Women’s Research

CEPA = Centre for Poverty Analysis

GCE O/L = General Certificate of Education Ordinary GCE A/L = General Certificate of Education Advanced GDP = Gross domestic product

HDI = Human Development Index

HIES = Household Income and Expenditure Survey LKR = Sri Lankan Roepies

LTTE = Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam MRA = Multiple Regression Analysis

OECD = Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development PCA = Principal Component Analysis

PHI = Poverty Headcount Index RCT = Rational Choice Theory

SIDA = Swedish International Development Cooperation SIGI = Social Institutions & Gender Index

UCSC = University of Colombo School of Computing UNDP = United Nations Development Programme

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Chapter 1: Introduction

The most recent Human Development Report (2015) draws renewed attention to the synergy between work and human development. Despite improvement in many development fields, inclusive development is still a topic of concern.1 With regard to employment there is a strong focus on two groups whose potential in the formal sector is not fully used, which are women and young people (UNDP, 2015: 61). Gender inequality in the labour market is both intrinsically and instrumentally problematic. It deprives not only women from a basic human right which is the ability to “live the life of one’s own choosing” (World Bank, 2011: 3), it also put limits to human capital and economic growth (Gunatilaka, 2013: xi). The differences in human development of men and women are largest in South-Asia (ibid: 59) and of this region Sri-Lanka is one of the main examples of a country in which gender inequality in employment is seen as a barrier to further development.

With its achievements in education and health Sri Lanka scores high on the Human Development Index (HDI) compared to other countries in the region. But Sri Lanka’s Human Development Report shows how these improvements are overshadowed by the high gender inequality in the country. This high score on gender inequality is mainly caused by the inequalities in labour participation (2011: 14), as Sri Lanka’s labour labour participation rate for women - which moved the last 15 years up and down between 30 and 40 percent - is worldwide one of the lowest. Not only is a large share of the women economically inactive, women are also more often unemployed than men.2 The numbers regarding labour participation show a significant difference based on gender and this difference is most striking for young men and women (Gunatilaka, 2013: 1 and 2 and Sri Lanka Department of Census and Statistics, 2015a: 1). The fact that women do not only participate less in the labour market than men but also have more trouble to find a job if they’re willing to participate contradicts with the enrolment rates in higher education, as 62 percent of the students enrolled in higher education is female (University Grants Commission, 2014: 19).

Concerns about gender differences are limited to the enrolment rates of girls and boys in different levels of the educational system, despite the effect of degree choice on future employment opportunities. Compared to other Asian countries, universities in Sri Lanka are too often focused on disciplines like arts and management that are non-technical and that do

1 Development can be inclusive if “all groups of people contribute to creating opportunities, share the benefits

of development and participate in decision-making” (Website UNDP, 2016).

2 These numbers are based on the participation of women in the formal sector and do not include women’s

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not generate the necessary skills for a modern economy (UNDP Sri Lanka, 2012: 75). In particular in these non-technical disciplines it are the women who are overrepresented (Gunawardena, 2013: 6).

Assuming that labour market participation is an outcome of a process of empowerment, this research looks at the agency of students regarding both education and employment and aims to reveal the impact of systemic structures on the agency of the students. It aims to contribute to the knowledge gap that currently exist in the relation between students’ agency influenced by prevailing structures on the one side and educational and occupational outcomes on the other. Understanding why choices are made in education could lead to context specific recommendations on a national level.

With capturing the empowerment of university students in specific, the traditional academic focus on outcomes of empowerment is changed to the process of empowerment, in which this research aims to make a valuable empirical and methodological contribution. As the empowerment framework is in particular an approach which is open to the researcher’s own interpretation, I would like to add with this research to this academic debate. From this approach and the focus on the process of empowerment of university students, the following question is explored:

How do systemic structures create barriers to the empowerment of university students in Sri Lanka and in how far does this lead to different educational and occupational outcomes for male and female students?

The theoretical foundations of this applied approach of empowerment are discussed in the theoretical framework which is detailed in Chapter 2. In this chapter empowerment is linked to systemic structures, based on a World Bank approach. Secondly, education and gender are incorporated into the framework to make it specific for the topic of this study. Chapter 3 describes the research design and will explain the methods of data collection and data analysis which will be followed by a description of the context in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5 and 6 the data will be analysed. In Chapter 5 the students’ agency will be discussed in order to see how empowered the students are. Chapter 6 takes the analysis a step further and will provide an analysis of the influence of the systemic structures on the agency of the students. Chapter 7 is the concluding chapter in which the research questions will be answered, a reflection will be given on the theory and recommendations are formulated.

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Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

2.1 Introduction

This chapter starts with an in-depth discussion on gender and development and its contribution to the conceptualization of women’s empowerment in the first section. The concept of women’s empowerment is widely used in development theory, but despite this, consensus is missing. For this reason, the main components which show overlap in the theories are discussed, which implies the focus on agency in empowerment theory. The second section discusses the systemic structures that interact with agency, which are formal institutions, markets and informal social institutions. Finally, the third section will explore Eccles (1994) model of achievement-related choices which incorporates gender in relation to educational and occupational agency. How these principal concepts relate to each other for the purpose of my research is shown in the conceptual scheme in figure 2.1 and explained in the last section.

2.2 Gender and development: Women’s empowerment

From the 1950’s onwards feminist scholars introduced gendered issues in many disciplines. Attempts to transform the use of gender in analysis was especially problematic in economics, as it addressed “deeply ingrained prejudices […] and deeply entrenched ways of knowing, of theorizing and of doing science” (Beneria, 1995: 1839). Within the neoclassical analytical framework and its assumptions of the household, there was no space for feminist movements to raise questions, as inequalities were not explained by gender roles but by the dynamics of the market instead (ibid: 1840). Sen’s (1990) bargaining model in which household dynamics were seen as cooperative conflicts based on game theory, critiqued this neoclassical model and enabled economists to incorporate a feminist approach. Sen’s approach also made a link with literature concerning gender and development and took the discussion from individual practices to macro issues in gender and development. As one of the pioneers in the field of gender and development, Boserup (1970) argued that policies in development are not necessarily gender neutral. The attention she drew to the gender dimensions in development led to the formulation of critiques on the modernization theory in which concerns were expressed about the different outcomes of development for men and women, due to the existing labour division (Beneria and Sen, 1981).

With the shift from neoclassical models to alternative models on the household dynamics in the 1990’s, the focus moved from the market structure to the bargaining power and processes of decision-making within the household (Sen, 1990; Argarwal, 1997). While the neoclassical

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rationale neglected the possibility that individuals were lacking choice, the new economic models acknowledged that individuals, and especially women, could be disempowered, for example by feeling dominated, passive, repressed, unsure or unaware of alternatives (Blank, 1993: 141). Grassroots experiences contributed to the conceptualization of empowerment which was in line with the current bottom-up approach in development thinking (Kabeer, 1994: 223).

Since then a lot has been written about the concept of empowerment in the field of international development and the concept has been embraced by the multilateral institutions as the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). This happened both on intrinsic and instrumental grounds. Women’s empowerment should first and foremost be seen as an end it itself (Kabeer, 1999), as “the ability to live the life of one’s own choosing and be spared from absolute deprivation is a basic human right and should be equal for everyone” (World Bank, 2011: 3). With regards to this empowerment is embarking on the grounds of power and social injustice. But empowerment is also extremely valuable as an instrument in achieving other development outcomes, which are mostly linked to the expansion of human capital and economic growth.

In 2002 the Gender and Development Group of the World Bank made an attempt to find a consensus in the definitions and methodology of the concept of empowerment. They identified four overlapping terms in defining empowerment which are: choice, options, control and power (Anju and Sidney, 2002: 5). In the definition of Cornwall and Rivas the notion of choices is reflected as follows:

"Empowerment is the process of enhancing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. Central to this process are actions which both build individual and collective assets, and improve the efficiency and fairness of the organizational and institutional context which govern the use of these assets” (2015: 406).

The ability to make choices is also present in the influential definition from Naila Kabeer in which empowerment is “the expansion in people’s ability to make strategic life choices in a context where this ability was previously denied” (Kabeer, 1999: 437). Both definitions also imply the important notion of a ‘process of change’ in which people are able to make choices

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which they were denied before. To be empowered means you have to be disempowered in the first place (ibid). This notion of chance makes sense in theory, but is highly problematic in scientific measurements. It implies that besides evidence on choices made, the transformative potential of these choices to address structural inequalities needs to be examined. While using these definitions the focus within this research will be on the notion of choice which will be combined with assumptions about the transformative potential of these choices that are derived from the context.

2.2.1 Resources, agency and achievements

In the empowerment literature different components of empowerment are described. The most common are resources and agency – although sometimes described in various other forms. (Anju and Sidney, 2002: 8). According to Kabeer, empowerment contains three interrelated dimensions which are resources, agency and achievements.

Resources can be seen as material, social and human, which are “acquired through a multiplicity of social relationships conducted in the various institutional domains which make up a society” (Kabeer, 1999: 442). It’s good to bear in mind that the resources are not proxies for empowerment, but more enabling factors or “conditions under which empowerment is likely to occur” (Anju and Sidney, 2002: 8). What the factors are that enable empowerment outcomes depends strongly on the inter-relationship with other variables and the context it takes place in. When integrating resources with the empowerment of students there are a few general material and human resources that can be assumed as important enablers of empowerment, which are faculty enrolled in, work experience and household income. As further explained in Chapter 4, the faculty the student is enrolled in determines future employment opportunities and is in that way enabling or disabling students. Household income is one of the most frequently used indicators of empowerment (Anju and Sidney, 2002: 26). While this is most of the time in terms of control over and access to, I argue that with regards to the empowerment of students, household income in general is an enabling factor. Not only do studies show that in a free but competitive educational system, families still spend a lot of money on the education of their children (Psacharopoulos and Papakonstantinou, 2005), economic status of the family also relates to academic achievements of children through parent’s beliefs and behaviours (Davis-Kean, 2005). Finally, work experience is perceived as an enabling factor as it contributes to the individual employability (Harvey, 2001) of students which will increase their job opportunities.

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The second dimension of empowerment contains the agency or the motivation, meaning and purpose behind the action of people, this dimension also refers most to the aspects of choice and decision-making as agency “encompasses the ability to formulate strategic choices, and to control resources and decisions that affect important life outcomes” (Anju and Sidney, 2002: 9). The agency part, or the ability to make decisions, can be seen as a crucial part in empowerment theory as resources can enable decision-making but the ability to make strategic life choices is necessary to reach empowering outcomes. This idea of agency can be linked to the academic discussion around Rational Choice Theory (RCT) in which “a rational choice or action is one in which the agent takes the best available action given her preferences and beliefs” (Satz and Ferejohn, 1994: 71). Despite the original claim that these preferences arise from individual psychology, Satz and Ferejohn argue that they derive “on the basis of an agent’s location in a social structure” (ibid: 72), critiquing the argument in liberal economics that there can be made assumptions about people’s essential nature as rational individuals (Stilwell, 2006: 73). Rationality is crucial to create a critical perspective on the social order and to move away from unquestioning acceptance (Kabeer, 1999: 441) arising from structural inequalities which leave people with little or no choice and opportunities to exercise their agency (Sen, 1999). In this study the assumption is made that agency can lead to empowering outcomes when there is both the ability to make reasoned choices (ibid) and these choices are challenging prevailing inequalities (Kabeer, 1999).

Less discussed but not less important in empowerment theory is the notion of self-esteem or self-confidence, or as Mosedale calls it, the power within (2005: 250). It could be argued that this is a human resource and in that way enables agency, but it distinguishes from other resources as “in a sense all power starts from here” (ibid). 3 The power within needs to be addressed to create a certain consciousness about possibilities, which make such an asset necessary in order to achieve anything else.

At last Kabeer uses the dimension of achievements which is described in following Sen (1985) as the “ways of being and doing which are realized by different individuals” (Kabeer, 1999: 438). This dimension relies heavily on the agency dimension as not being able to achieve something needs to reflect “deep-seated constraint on the ability to choose” (Kabeer, 1999: 442). I follow Anju and Sidney in their argument that achievements can be seen for that reason as an additional component which relates more to the outcomes of empowerment (Anju and

3 Components of self-esteem are for example included in empowerment models of N. Stromquist (1995) and

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Sidney, 2002: 9) and argue that while taking into account resources as conditions, the process of empowerment is mainly shaped by agency. From the purpose and the scope of this research, which looks at university students, agency is perceived as the ability of the students to make decisions and the self-esteem acquired related to those decisions.

A more recent initiative to measure women’s empowerment is developed by the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE). In their framework they see empowerment as “the expansion of assets and capabilities of poor people to participate in, negotiate with, influence, control and hold accountable the institutions that affect their lives” (CARE, 2006: 4). This definition shows clearly how empowerment can be an instrument in development, as empowerment enables human capital which gives people the opportunity to not only hold the dominate institutions accountable, but also to participate in these institutions. When translating this to the empowerment of students, empowerment could be seen as expanding the capabilities of the students – by enabling them to make strategic life choices regarding education and employment – to participate in the labour market.

While this definition incorporates the effect of agency on prevailing structures, missing is the notion of barriers to agency arising from prevailing structures. The relation between structures that derive from the system and the agency of the people in that society will be further discussed in section 3.

2.2.2 Economic empowerment

Looking at empowerment as the ability to make choices means that people can be empowered in different aspects of their life. In development research there is a growing attention to the economic empowerment of women, mostly because of its instrumental rationale. Different studies show the positive outcomes of female education and employment on economic growth (Kabeer, 2012: 4). The relation between education and economic growth is supported by human capital theory – and this theory is also for a great deal supported by this relation. Investments in human capital are all “activities that influence future real income through the imbedding of resources in people” (Becker, 1962: 9) and for this reason it is not surprising that “education and training are the most important investments in human capital” (Becker, 2009: 17). Proof of this is shown by Psacharopoulos and Patrinos, as education has both a positive private and social return to investment by income level and with returns relatively higher for women than men (2004: 113 to 116).

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According to the 2012 World Development Report including women in development is smart economics in the sense that it has benefits in several ways. The most obvious one is that to provide women with the same access to economic opportunities, education and productive inputs as men will lead to productivity gains. But investing in women will also lead to other development outcomes, for example in health and childcare (2011: 3). The economic focus is also present in development interventions as for example in the Millennium Development Goals in which one of the indicators for women’s empowerment is “an increase in women’s share of non-agricultural employment” (Kabeer, 2012: 7).

Not surprisingly because of its economic thinking, the World Bank embraced the term economic empowerment as one of the first. In their definition “economic empowerment is about making markets work for women (at the policy level) and empowering women to compete in markets (at the agency level)” (World Bank, 2006: 4). This focus on both agency and structures which provide access is present in most of the theories on economic empowerment. As for example the components the UNDP assigns to the economic sphere of empowerment which are women’s economic opportunity, their legal rights and status, their voice and the inclusion and participation of women in economic decision-making (ibid: 8). The Swedish International Development Cooperation (SIDA) uses a definition that does not only include the agency aspects we’ve seen before in terms as decisions and choices but also has a strong focus on the market structures, as they see women’s economic empowerment as:

“The process which increases women’s real power over economic decisions that influence their lives and priorities in society. Women’s economic empowerment can be achieved through equal access to and control over critical economic resources and opportunities, and the elimination of structural gender inequalities in the labour market including a better sharing of unpaid care work” (SIDA, 2013: 1).

While this definition is a good example of how economic empowerment can occur, it also has limits. The main advantage of this definition is that because it is linked to a specific area of society, structures are identified that form a barrier to the empowerment of women. Despite this, the definition is too short-sighted in assuming that economic access will lead to more empowerment, while other structures which are for example cultural derived are not taken into account. How structures interrelate to each other and how this can affect empowerment will be discussed in the following section.

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2.3 Structures and barriers

Before discussing the structures that are included in this research, it is important to look once more at the debate regarding structures and agency. Within empowerment theory it is acknowledged that structures shape identities, interests and choices (Kabeer, 1999), while empowering outcomes are created by the increase in consciousness about these structures in order to make reasoned choices that challenge them. This study incorporates a constructivist approach in which structures are perceived as systemic or arising from the system and not being exogenous to agency (Wendt, 1995: 303).

In this research I’ll use the division used in the 2012 World Development Report (WDR) which speaks about formal institutions, informal social institutions and markets. From the viewpoint of households, choices are made based on preferences, constraints and incentives of the family members in relation to their agency. These preferences, constraints and incentives are influenced by both the institutions and markets (2011a: 8).

In this framework of the World Development Report markets are a “variety of arrangements that allow buyers and sellers to exchange (the rights over) any type of goods and services subject to a set of rules” (ibid). Different markets that are distinguished are labor, credit, goods and land markets. They are for example influencing the incentives people base their choice on, as they determine the household returns to decisions and investments (ibid). In relation to education as human capital, the job market is the main structure that creates the rates of return to education and reasoned from rational choice theory, the job market would be able to influence the choices that are made regarding to education.

That this is not always the case is recognized by Evers and van Hees, in following Turkenburgs’ (1996) perspective that “choices are restricted by the influence of the social context and hegemonic power processes and power relations” (2013: 210). Preferences are mostly influenced by informal social institutions which are “the mechanism, rules, and procedures that shape social interaction but do not pertain to the functionings of the state” (The World Bank, 2011a: 8). Looking at these institutions the report focuses on gender roles, social norms, beliefs and social networks. Gender roles determine to a certain extent the behaviors of men and women within certain social contexts and “gain power as they are learned through socialization, elaborated in cultural products, and enacted in daily life” (ibid). Repeated experience of this influences the ideas or beliefs about the attributes of both sexes and their own sense of identity. Social norms arise from these beliefs as patterns of behavior enforced by informal social sanctions (ibid).

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These power processes and relations can be institutionalized in the public sphere, which leads to the formal institutions as the final dimension, which are “all aspects that pertain to the functioning of the state, including laws, regulatory frameworks, and mechanisms for the delivery of services that the state provides” (ibid: 8). In relation to education and employment, formal institutions can lead to constraints in the form of limited access or the absence of security and laws to protect them.

This framework of formal institutions, informal institutions and markets is closely related to empowerment as systemic structures shape individual resources and agency and “define the parameters within which different categories of actors are able to pursue their interest, promoting the voice and agency of come and inhibiting that of others” (Kabeer, 1999: 461). In Chapter 4 I will discuss how these structures in the Sri Lankan context are shaped by patriarchal gender hierarchies.

2.4 Gendered choices

As already noticed, choices cannot be assumed rational as preferences are shaped by different structures. Eccles (1994) developed a theoretical model which allows to look at achievement related choices regarding education and employment from a gendered perspective. The model links educational and occupational choices to two sets of beliefs, which are the importance someone attaches to the options perceived as available and the expectations for success. In this perspective agency is not only based on preference and availability of options, but is also strongly related to self-esteem as individuals’ expectations for success depends on their confidence in their intellectual abilities (1994: 589). Different studies found that girls have lower self-esteem, higher anxiety and are more likely to underestimate their skills than boys; yet these are measures widely linked to expectations of success.4

Regarding the availability of options, individuals do not consciously consider all their options when making a choice, for example because they are unaware of their existence, because of lacking information or because it does not fit with the individual’s idea about gender roles. As Eccles states “assimilation of the culturally defined gender role schema can have such a powerful effect on one’s view of the world that activities classified as a part of the other gender’s role are rejected, often non consciously, without any serious evaluation or consideration” (ibid: 590).

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In the theory different ways are described in which gender roles, or ‘socialization experiences’, affect educational and vocational choices. Overall gender role socialization leads to gendered hierarchies of core personal values. One of the traditional gendered values is caring for others. Girls are more likely to make occupational sacrifices in order to take care of family, while boys on the other hand value fame and wealth. This relates strongly to another aspect, the ability of gender roles to define adult activities (ibid: 600 and 601). A study by Leach et al. (1999) about perceptions on students’ desired economic situation showed that men have a strong perception of ‘deserving’ a high income, based on both effort and ability. According to the authors this may reflect socialization experiences in which men have to fulfill the role of the provider and income is perceived as a measure of success (19). In this case valuing money stems from the idea that men have to provide for their family which in turn determines specific activities. This also leads to specific definitions in how to be successful in certain activities. From this viewpoint of men providing for the family, parenting will be carried out different by men and women. While this would lead to men being even more committed to their career, women would value other activities , for example taking care of the children (Eccles, 1994: 601).

This behavior creates a vicious circle as the outcomes of socialization experiences implies that children are exposed to gender identities and roles by others. As Eccles states, “gender roles could affect the subjective value of various educational and vocational options by indirectly influencing the behaviors and attitudes of the people individuals are exposed to as they grow up” (604). Parents are perceived as influential role models to their children. Eccles study shows evidence that adolescents career aspirations are primary shaped by their parents’ attitudes and behavior (Eccles, 1993 and 1998). Adolescence is in particular a period in which emerging identities influence course enrollment decisions and occupational planning and it is this period that parents are still highly influential (Eccles, 1998; Jodl et.al, 2001).

2.5 Conceptual Scheme

In figure 2.1 the relations between the structures and agency are illustrated. The structures are identified based on the World Development Report (The World Bank, 2011a) as informal social institutions, markets and formal institutions. They do not only shape agency, but as the arrows illustrate, they also influence each other. Agency is shaped by an interplay of the different systemic structures, for that reason when looking at access to the labour market other institutions have to be taken into account, for example the gender roles and identities that are part of the informal institutions in the society. Agency (Kabeer, 1999 and Anju and Sidney,

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2002), which is framed within these structures, consists of the self-esteem (Mosedale, 2005) and the decision-making power of the students, in which the skills and resources are seen as possible enabling factors. The agency of the students eventually leads to outcomes which can be reproducing the structures under which agency is shaped, or they can lead to outcomes that challenge the prevailing structures and lead to empowerment.

Figure 2.1 Conceptual scheme of the interplay between structures and agency

Self-esteem Decision-making Skills and resources

Agency

Informal Social

Institutions

Formal

Institutions

Markets

Educational and occupational

outcomes

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Chapter 3: Research Design

This chapter clarifies how the research is executed. It formulates the research questions and explains how a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods is used in order to get insights from different perspectives and to facilitate the triangulation of data, by which the questions are answered. The process is described as clear as possible without getting too much in detail, as especially within a quantitative research tradition replication is highly valued (Bryman, 2012: 47). Besides enumerating how the research was carried out, the final part shows the challenges and limitations that occurred in this process.

3.1 Research Questions

Based on the aim of this research and the theories discussed in the theoretical framework, the following research question is derived:

How do systemic structures create barriers to the empowerment of university students in Sri Lanka and in how far does this lead to different educational and occupational outcomes for male and female students?

To answer this question, the following sub-questions are derived which will form the basis of the analysis carried out in Chapter 5 and 6:

How empowered are the students?

1a: Which resources enable agency outcomes?

1b: Is there a difference in the agency of male and female students?

How do systemic structures form a barrier to the empowerment of the students?

2a: How do formal institutions, informal institutions and markets affect the agency

regarding employment of university students?

2b: How do formal institutions, informal institutions and markets affect the agency

regarding education of university students?

2c: Is there a difference in how these structures affect the agency of male and female students

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3.2 Unit of Analysis

In my research I want to capture the agency of university students and the barriers they face in their empowerment. Not only to see what withholds them from participation in the labour market, but also to see the role of education in this process. Although this research is mainly derived from the problem in female participation in the labour force, I choose to include both female and male students in my sample in order to make a comparison between both groups of students. Besides the focus on gender, I also take the faculty choice into account in order to see if the choice of the faculty tells something about the agency of the student.

3.3 Methodology

This research is predominantly quantitative, which is deliberately chosen, from the believe that measuring the ‘real world’ is possible up to a certain extend. Only to find out how this real world works and what the ‘realities’ are, we are dependent on people in nature biased and have different perspectives. People are never totally objective of free of values to be able to discover true reality. From this position it is assumed that reality over time is “shaped by a congeries of social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic, and gender factors, and then crystallized (reified) into a series of structures that are now (inappropriately) taken as “real”” (Guba and Lincoln, 1994: 110). While taking these notions of critical theory into account, for the purpose of this study a more postpositivistic methodology is used, in which the empirical findings in the study are explained from the empowerment theory that hovers above the research. It is this empowerment framework that leaves space for more subjectivity, which results in a top-down approach open to subjective interpretations.

In the case of my research I assume that agency is influenced by different structures that are real to people and most of the times not questioned at all. Instead of taking them for granted the impact of these structures is an integral part of my research. In carrying out my research I am also aware that the structures influenced by social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic and gender factors that I assume as my reality will influence the way I’m doing the research and the relation to ‘the investigated’. The choice of mixed methods fits with this perception as combining methods allows to “participate in dialogue about multiple ways of seeing and hearing, multiple ways of making sense of the social world and multiple standpoints on what is important and to be valued and cherished” (Greene, 2007: 20).

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3.4 Sampling

Before going to the field I did not assume that access to the university in order to carry out my research would be a problem. Once in the field I experienced that getting access was less easy than expected and it took a while due to administrative issues. When I started with the distribution of my surveys at the University of Colombo, I had no option to carry out a probability sample, as groups of students from different faculties and years already had their summer break. For this reason, I carried out a non-probability convenience sample (Bryman, 2012: 201) and selected the students on the basis of their presence at the campus. I took into account the stratification criterion and included most of the students from the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Science as these are the largest faculties of the university. For other faculties it was impossible to get the amount of respondents based on stratification. This was the case for students from the Faculty of Management and Finance of which only a few students were present at the campus due to the summer break. With regard to gender I didn’t used a strict quota, but the focus was mainly on girls because in order to use quantitative methods I needed a sample of at least 150 female students.

Regarding the interviews and focusgroups again a non-probability sample was used. Professionals were selected based on their knowledge about the particular topic and their job. I started with interviewing the researchers of the Centre for Women’s Research (CENWOR), in order to use their expertise in the rest of my research. After the distribution of the surveys I had interviews with students and lecturers of the University in order to get more inside knowledge of the practices of the University. The Dean of the Faculty of Arts for example was a critical person with regard to this specific topic.

The selection of the students for the interviews and focusgroup discussions was based on their availability and had the main criteria that the students were from the Faculty of Arts, as this faculty had the main focus in this research.

3.5 Methods

This research is based on both quantitative and qualitative methods. The combination of both methods arose from the need to explain initial results (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2011: 9), as the research is predominantly quantitative, qualitative methods were primarily used for the interpretation of the quantitative results. Quantitative analysis addressed the structures that predict agency but in order to better understand the processes by which this happens, qualitative data was used.

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3.5.1 Survey

In order to measure the levels of agency and the structures experienced by the students I developed a survey (see Appendix II). The survey consisted of two parts of which the first part included general questions about the students, as gender, faculty enrolled in, family composition etc. This part used both open and closed ended questions. The second part consisted of several statements in order to measure different components of both the structures and agency. For the statements a Likert-scale was used with five options: totally disagree, disagree, neutral, agree and totally agree. Statements related to agency were formulated to measure self-esteem and decision-making regarding both education and employment. Structure related statements were about personal experiences and perspectives regarding formal institutions, informal institutions and markets. The statements are derived from the operationalization (See Appendix I) and where necessary adapted to the local context.

Before the start of this part of my research, a pilot-test was carried out with three students of the University of Colombo, in order to see if they had any problems with the format and content of the survey. In this pilot I focused on three criteria, which are the clarity, the comprehensiveness and the acceptability of the survey (Rea and Parker, 2014: 38). Based on this pilot-test I was able to adapt some of the questions in order to make it better understandable, which contributed to the clarity of the survey. With some of the questions in the general part of the survey, the students pointed out that answer categories were missing, which I added to the official survey to make it more comprehensive. Finally, with this pilot test I was able to test the amount of time the students would need to fill in the survey, which was around 20 minutes, which is lengthy but was not considered problematic.

3.5.2 In-depth Interviews

While in the field there were two stages in the research process where I carried out interviews. The first stage was prior to developing the survey and the second stage was after I carried out the survey research.

In the first stage I had an interview with Professor Gunawardena and Professor Jayaweera from CENWOR, which are both experts in the field of gender, education and employment. The purpose of the interviews was to get more knowledge about women in university and the labour market and the current problems. There were several topics I wanted to address; the high unemployment rate of graduates; the overrepresentation of women in the Arts faculty; gender roles in Sri Lanka and topics that derived from the literature I read from both the professors. With the use of topics instead of fixed questions, certain issues were discussed in-depth and

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gave me wide understanding, on the other hand I was able to capture their point of view on different topics. These interviews helped me to put the research problem into context and to develop the survey.

In the second stage of the interviews I held different interviews in order to capture experiences of the students and teachers at the university. These interviews were guided by a few prepared questions and were open for questions arising during the interview (see Appendix IV). While initially the idea was to base these interviews of the results of the survey, due to limitations I had to carry out the interviews based on the the knowledge I had at that time. The purpose of these interviews was mainly to help me with the interpretation of the quantitative analysis. While most of participants were sufficient in the English language, my supervisor functioned as an interpreter in the case of two interviews with students that only spoke Sinhala. In order to carry out the interviews and record this digitally I got permission from the participants in the form of informed consent. This was based on the promise to not use the participants’ name, but only characteristics as gender and faculty enrolled in. Exceptions are made in the case of some prominent persons as the professors of CENWOR and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts who are identifiable due to their positions and are referred to their names.

3.5.3 Focus Groups

The focus groups were included in my research to contribute to the triangulation of the methods. I organized two focus groups, one with female students and one with male students both from the Faculty of Arts. These focus groups were guided by specific topics, about which I let the students speak freely. The first topic was concerning the choices they made regarding their education, especially why they made these choices and in how far these choices were influenced by others. The second topic was about the faculties environment, with a strong focus on the practices of the student union. The third topic was concerned about their future employment, in the sense of what they expect after graduation.

In order to create an environment in which the students were free to speak, it was first of all important that we had a private space to carry out the focus group. The University of Colombo was able to provide us with an empty classroom that we could use. Another important aspect was that in order to let the students feel comfortable I organized the focus group with students that already knew each other outside the classroom. This led to the fact that the students felt free to tell about their personal experiences.

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3.5.4 Observations and Conferences

Besides the methods described above, I gained a lot of information about the educational system and the student life, by observing and interact with the students in the university. As my research assistant was one of the students of the University of Colombo, she was able to introduce me to the students and make them feel comfortable to tell me their experiences in an informal way. We had the chance to observe a lecture that was part of the Education (English) degree, in order to see the composition of the students and the way they interact with their teachers.

Another source of information were the conferences that took place in Colombo about the educational system, especially with regard to future employment. During the period of my fieldwork the International Conference on Promoting Socio-Economic Equity in South Asia:

Challenges and Prospects took place, of which one of the themes was education. Also the

Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA) had their 53rd annual Open Forum on Poverty, which was this year concerned with university education with the topic University Education in Sri Lanka:

A Critical Reflection. The lectures that took place at both conferences helped me to place the

research problem of this study in a wider context of which concerns were already raised.

3.6 Methods of Data Analysis

Based on the quantitative data collection, I used IBM SPSS version 23.0.0.0 to carry out the statistical analyses. Quotes from the interviews and focus groups are used to support this analysis.

I start the analysis with a descriptive overview of the students’ agency, by using frequency tables and bar graphs. Relationships between the variables were analysed by using Crosstabs and Pearson Chi-square tests in order to look at differences concerning gender, faculty enrolled in and household income level. For these statistical tests a 95 percent significance level was used.

To take the analysis a step further, a Principal Component Analysis was carried out in order to expose clusters of variables that could be identified as components of either the structures or agency dimensions. The internal reliability of the components was tested with Cronbach’s Alpha, which would ideally not be lower than α = 0.7. The Principal Component Analysis led to a reduction in the amount of variables which made the data suitable for Standard Multiple Regression Analysis, which was carried out in order to analyse the relation between the identified structures and agency. Significance of the results from regression is tested on all three levels (95 percent, 99 percent and 99,9 percent).

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3.7 Challenges and Limitations

During my fieldwork a student of the University of Colombo helped me as a research assistant with the distribution of the surveys and conducting the interviews, in two of the interviews with Sinhala speaking students she also performed as the interpreter. The use of a local student as research assistant and interpreter was advised by the organization in Sri Lanka I was connected to while carrying out my research. This had several benefits, as she had excellent knowledge about the context of my research and in most cases this led to more confidence of the participant to speak freely. On the other hand, this also led to limitations as it is not sure in how far answers are different because there was a fellow student present during the interviews. In the interviews with Sinhala speaking students, the barrier of an interpreter led to disconnection with the participant. Because the research assistant was familiar with the topic due to her presence at the interviews I conducted in English, a lack of experience led to the tendency of her taking over the interview which increased the disconnection with the participant.

Other challenges arose due to the limited amount of time in which I had to carry out the research. Although my sample was large enough to carry out several statistical analyses, more sampled students from the Faculty of Management and Finance, Law and Medicine would have been better to make my arguments stronger when looking at differences between the faculties.

3.7.2 Reliability and Validity

As already discussed in Chapter 2, there are a variety of definitions about empowerment and so far this has not led to a compromise in the measurement of this concept. The idea of empowerment as a process which can occur in every area of someone’s life makes measurement of the concept, and especially in a quantitative way extremely difficult. I tried to stay as close to the main aspects trough which empowerment could occur (self-esteem and decision-making) and specified these aspects to the areas of my focus (education and employment). With the foundation in a broad discussion of various literature about empowerment, attempts were made to increase the validity of the research instruments. With regard to the internal validity of the outcomes of this study, the relations that are found in the analysis are when possible supported by the context and literature in order to avoid false assumptions

The external validity is limited because of the non-probability sample that is used to gather participants. Despite the size and the intentional composition of the sample, the selection of the students which was based on convenience poses limits to the validity of the generalizability of the outcomes. Not all students had the same chance of being included in the study as some students were on their summer break, were not spending their break between lectures at campus

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or had other reasons to not be present at University. A probability sample would have increased the external validity of the study, bus was due to limitations in time and resources not feasible.

With the design of a new survey to measure the concepts structure and agency, it was not totally unexpected that several limitations occurred with the analysis of the data gathered with this survey. This had mainly to do with the internal reliability of the scales that I intended to use. For quantitative research the consistency of indicators that make up a scale is of great importance, in order to actually say something about the outcome of the test (Bryman, 2012: 169). In the case of my data these standards were met to a large extend, although in some cases I had no other option than to exclude aspects of the data or to work with data of which the internal reliability was questioned.

Another aspect with regard to the reliability of this research instrument is that stability over time can’t be assured. As this was the first time this research instrument was used, it has not been proven that it would measure the same the next time it will be used. With questions that are sensitive to the person’s abilities and feelings at a specific point of time, there is a great chance that outcomes would be different when the research is carried out a few years later. This is not unusual in research as tests of stability are not carried out in most reports of research findings (Bryman, 2012: 170).

3.8 Ethical considerations

Because I used a public institution as research area, the purpose and research instruments of the study were thoroughly checked. I personally informed both Professor L. Medis as acting vice-chancellor of the University of Colombo and all the deans of the different faculties. With a main focus on the Faculty of Arts I also had to gain permission from the Ethics Review Committee

for Social Sciences and Humanities. Which assured the safety and wellbeing of the participants

and which bounded me as researcher to follow best practice and to ensure confidentiality of the participants.

In carrying out my research I was clear about the purpose of my research. As the survey was distributed in large amounts at the same time, I included a brief section with the purpose, the voluntary and anonymous nature of participation and the notion that more information could always be asked for. This is order to give the participants the option to receive as much information as needed to decide whether or not to participate in the research (Bryman, 2012: 138). As not all the students in the University spoke English, I had the survey translated in Sinhala (see Appendix III), which is the second most spoken language in the University after English. In approaching the students, they were asked which survey they preferred. With only

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a really small part of the students that only speak Tamil, I decided not to use a Tamil translation of the survey due to time restrictions, which in a certain way did harm ethical principals.

In the case of the interviews, in which participation is less anonymous, I made the participants sign a consent form to ensure the participants rights and the confidentiality of the recorded data.

Both the fact that I am just as the participants a university student and that I carried out my research in this specific institution, avoided expectations of the participants that could have influenced their answers. Still even in the university, having a western appearance drew attention, not only from the students but also from the teachers. Besides appearance, language is not free of bias. The University of Colombo is as a public university composed of students from different social classes, in which the English language is, descended from the colonial period, one of the characteristics of the wealthy families. Awareness of this relative ‘privileged’ position was necessary as I spent a lot of time at the University and this could affect the responses of participants.

3.9 Conclusion

Deriving from epistemological considerations, I used a mixed methods research-design to explore the relation between specific identified structures and the agency of students of the University of Colombo. In the data collection and analyses I came across several limitations which influenced the reliability and validity of my research. In relation to these two criteria I decided which parts of the data to use in the rest of the chapters.

The next chapter describes the empirical context in which my research took place and which will add to a better understanding of the outcomes arising from the data analysis.

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Chapter 4: Empirical context

4.1 Introduction

This chapter will describe the empirical context in which my research is embedded, in order to answer the research questions. To get a full picture, the next section will describe Sri Lanka’s socio-economic characteristics. This is followed by a description of the educational system as it has been in place since the Second World War. With regard to my research it is important to look at the distribution of male and female students within faculties and degrees, but also the highly competitive nature of education is important in this context. The third section describes Sri Lanka’s labour force. The difference in labour participation between women and men in Sri Lanka is one of the main reasons to carry out this research on this particular topic and has a strong focus throughout this paper. Finally, the last chapter will describe Sri Lanka’s patriarchal society, in which the male dominated hierarchy in power relations shapes gendered identities and roles, which affect women in their everyday life.

4.2 Sri Lanka’s Demography and Socio-Economic Characteristics

4.2.1 Demography

Sri Lanka has a little more than 20 million inhabitants which are living in nine provinces including: Central, Western, Southern, Eastern, Northern, North Western, North Central, Sabaragamuwa and Uva. With around 5,8 million people the Western province of which Colombo is the capital has the biggest population despite its relative small size. With slightly more than 1 million people, the Northern province has the smallest population (Sri Lankan Department of Census and Statistics, 2014 and UNDP Sri Lanka, 2012: 2).

The population in Sri Lanka consists of a mix of ethnicities, besides the 15 million Sinhala people which constitute the majority in the country, there are more than 2 million Sri Lankan Tamil, almost 2 million Sri Lankan Moor and several other ethnicities like the Malay, Indian Tamil, and Burgher accounting for smaller proportions of the population (UNDP Sri Lanka, 2012: 2). Most ethnic groups are spatially located, like the Sri Lankan Tamil of which most live in the Northern and Eastern province, the Indian Tamils living in the central province and although the Moor are spread over the Island a considerable part lives in the Eastern province (ibid). This mix of ethnicities also explains the different religions on the Island. In general, the Sinhalese population is Buddhist, the Tamil population Hindu and the Moors are Muslim. Christian religions are present but to a much lesser extent (ibid).

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In economic terms Sri Lanka is divided in three sectors, which are the rural, urban and the estate sector. Most of the people, 77,5 percent, live in the rural areas, the urban area covers 18,3 percent of the population who are mainly living in the Western province and a small part of the people live in the estates with 4,4 percent (Sri Lankan Department of Census and Statistics, 2012: III). The estate sector exists of descendants of the Tamil that originally came from India and were brought to Sri Lankan to work on the tea and coffee estates located mainly in the Central provinces (UNDP Sri Lanka, 2012: 2 and 5).

A large part of the population consists of young people, with 8.3 million people, 41,5 percent of the population was younger than 25 years in 2012 (ibid).

4.2.2 Socio-economic characteristics: Economic growth and deepening inequalities

The division in both provinces and sectors is also relevant when looking at the distribution of income and growth in the country. Sri Lanka experienced a sharp increase in its per capita income in the period from 2003 to 2010, with a per capita income rise from 981 dollar to 2,400 dollar. This improvement in living standards also led to a decline in the number of people living below the poverty line, from 4.3 million in 2002 to 1.8 million in 2010 (UNDP Sri Lanka, 2012: 4). While all provinces except the Eastern province contributed to the economic growth of Sri Lanka, it was mainly the Western province that was responsible for this outcome over the last years. While in 2003 the province had a share of 45 percent in gross domestic product (GDP), this was almost 50 percent in 2009 (ibid). The latest annual report of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka shows that from 2010 onwards the economy continues to grow, although growth rates decrease. While the country’s nominal GDP increased from 49.6 billion dollar in 2010 to 74.9 billion dollar in 2014, the growth in real GDP slightly decreased from a 8,4 percent growth rate compared to the previous year in 2011 to a 7,5 percent growth rate in 2014 (2014: Annex). Sri Lanka’s largest sector is the service sector, which contributes for 57,6 percent to its GDP, this is followed by the industry sector, contributing for 32,3 percent. The growth in these sectors goes at the expense of the agricultural sector, which contributes only for 10,1 percent of GDP (ibid: 3).

The average household income was Rs. 45.878 per month measured in 2012/2013, which equals 360 dollar.5 According to Sri Lanka’s poverty line, which is used in the 2012/2013 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES), a person is considered poor when his or her income falls below Rs. 3.624. According to the HIES, the percentage of people living in

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poverty declined from 22,7 percent in 2002 to 6,7 percent in 2012/2013. The differences in the Poverty Headcount Index (PHI) vary amongst districts, with the lowest rates in the Western districts and the highest rates in the North and East part of the Island. While the PHI for some districts in the North and East are more than 20 percent, Colombo district has with 1,4 percent the lowest PHI (Department of Census and Statistics, 2015b: 5 and 6). These income inequalities can be linked to two factors. First, poverty is linked strongly to the type of sector people are employed in. Of the people that are employed in the estate sector (independent of them having a job in agriculture, industry or in services) 11,4 percent are living in poverty, compared to 9,4 percent in the rural sector and 5,3 percent in the urban sector (UNDP Sri Lanka, 2012: 84). Second, the three-decade long conflict between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) led to high poverty rates in the Northern and Eastern area in which the conflict predominantly took place, as most of the displaced people were involved in farming and lost livelihoods (ibid: 6).

Figure 4.1 Map of Sri Lanka

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