AGDI Gender
Outlook Series
MALAWI
10
The African Centre for Gender (ACG) Gender Outlook #10 aims to benchmark Malawi’s performance on the African Gender and Development Index (AGDI), highlight challenges and offer prioritized policy recommendations to accelerate pro- gress towards gender equality. The AGDI is based on two components. The first is the Gender Status Index (GSI), a quantitative snapshot of 44 indicators that capture gender disparities1 in the social, economic and political arenas. The second component is the African Women’s Progress Score- board (AWPS), a qualitative self-evaluation of government performance in the implementation of more than 30 treaties, declarations, and resolutions affecting women’s rights and women’s empowerment in the social, economic and political arenas. All data2 are provided by stakeholders in Malawi, in- cluding various ministries and civil society organizations. This profile draws on the results from the AGDI Country Report on Malawi, one of the 14 countries in Phase 2 of the AGDI3.
Key Messages
• Malawi’s education sector is in dire need of a major boost. The AGDI Country Report highlights a myriad of challenges ahead, including basic supply-side challenges
1 The GSI for most of the indicators are calculated by dividing the indica- tor for female achievement by that for male achievement for the particular indicator. A tolerance level of 3 per cent is set around the full gender pari- ty score, leading to a parity bandwidth of 0.97-1.03 whereby scores below (above) this bandwidth indicate gender disparity against women (men).
However, there are eight reverse indicators, i.e. stunting, underweight, mortality, prevalence of HIV/AIDS, share of women under poverty line, time spent on non-market activities and domestic care and volunteer activities and youth unemployment rate, that follow a slightly different formula such that overshooting in these normatively negative indicators are neutralized for the consistency of the index.
2 The Country Report from Malawi was received by the ACG in June 2012.
While the ACG has strived to update various indicators using international databases, e.g. Demographic and Health Survey and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the majority of the indicators are from 2012 and were provided by the government of Malawi.
3 Other countries that were part of AGDI 2 are Botswana, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Gambia, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, Togo and Zambia.
(i.e. classrooms, teachers, teaching materials and sanitary facilities). On the quality side, widespread occupational segregation in the labour market is a direct consequence of young men consistently outperforming young wom- en in sciences and mathematics over time.
• Women’s economic empowerment in Malawi is impeded by the lack of sufficient and relevant educational attain- ment and skills, the lack of property and market know- how, time poverty and negative cultural attitudes to- wards women’s career advancement. A variety of labour market policies that are currently being experimented with in Africa may offer practical solutions for Malawi.
• Malawi is not even halfway towards satisfying its regional commitment on women’s representation in parliament.
The situation is even bleaker at local level. Women are also virtually absent from leading positions in political parties. Cultural norms, financial requirements and po- tential violence around elections are among the leading reasons behind women’s underrepresentation in the public sector and civil society.
The composite indicators from the GSI and the AWPS sug- gest that Malawi has some consistency in policy and im- plementation. However, this consistency at the composite level masks two sub-components in which Malawi exhibits large discrepancies. While Malawi has gender parity in the Social Power block of the GSI, it has done so with quite a low policy implementation score. The key indicators of this suboptimal policy implementation are lack of action on safe abortion as well as weak policy commitment to reducing girl dropout rates, and mainstreaming women’s and human rights education across schools. The reverse holds true in the Political Power block, where Malawi has not even reached
2
AGDI Gender Outlook Series
the one-quarter benchmark towards gender parity while at the same time recording an average satisfaction rate in pol- icy implementation. Consistency prevails in the Economic Power block and Malawi has reported a relatively high score for its level of development both on the GSI and the AWPS.
Figure 2 sheds further light on Malawi’s performance on the GSI relative to the gender equality benchmark. In the Social Power block, while Malawi has gone beyond parity in the Health sub-component, significant challenges lie ahead for reaching gender parity in education, both in terms of quan- tity (i.e. enrolment) and quality (i.e. literacy as well as com- pletion). In the Economic Power block, Malawi is the only country that reports gender parity in wages across all sectors while at the same time suffering from large gender dispari- ties in women’s access to resources. Finally, Malawi performs very weakly in the Political Power block, particularly in the Public Sector. The AGDI Country Report indicates that wom- en’s representation is fairly near that of men only in a few niche institutions across the political and civic spheres.
• The Social Power block is made up of the Education and Health sub-components. Malawi urgently needs to un- dertake large supply-side interventions to reduce aver- age primary school class sizes – which have grown from
85 in 2005 to 101 in 2010 – as well as teacher-pupil ratios that have also increased over the same period. Factors that lower the quality of education also make it harder to keep children in school.
In Education, Malawi is facing a myriad of challenges in raising the quantity and quality of educational attainment.
While girls exceed parity at primary and especially secondary level, net enrolment rates are alarmingly low, particularly in secondary (13 per cent) and tertiary education. While repe- tition rates are similar for boys and girls, dropout rates have increased recently for girls. The 1994 reform that introduced free education increased enrolment rates over the years.
However, Malawi is struggling to keep children, particularly girls, in school beyond primary education. Prominent reasons cited in the AGDI Country Report include early marriage and adolescent pregnancy, security concerns in terms of sexual harassment during the long distances to reach schools, child labour and domestic work in urban centres, inadequate san- itary facilities and large teacher-pupil ratios and classroom sizes. Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that Malawi’s score is at or below the Round II average in literacy and pri- mary completion rates.
Figure 1: African Gender and Development Index Snapshot - Malawi
0.65
1.02
0.70
0.21
0.62 0.64 0.66 0.52
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5
Composite Social Power Economic Power Political Power
GSI AWPS
Figure 2. Disaggregating Malawi’s Gender Status Index
0.86
1.18
0.87 0.74
0.49
0.16 0.25
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20 1.40
Education Health Wages and Income Time Use &
Employment Access to
Resources Public Sector Civil Society Malawi Parity
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AGDI Gender Outlook Series
In Health, there have been large reductions in the prevalence of long-term and short-term malnutrition. However, the absolute levels are still high with more than 40 per cent of children on average suffering from stunting. While girls suffer less than boys, it is crucial to highlight that malnutrition and child mortality rates are higher in rural areas, where maternal educational attainment is lower than in urban areas. Given that 85 per cent of the population resides in rural areas, it is paramount that prompt action is taken, as children with empty stomachs are less likely to learn at school. An inspiring note from Malawi’s experience is the success in countering HIV/AIDS, as captured in the GSI as well as the AWPS. Com- pared to other AGDI Round II countries, prevalence rates in Malawi are lower, i.e. below 5 per cent, and there is gender parity in terms of raising knowledge on preventive methods.
Innovative strategies are used to engage men in the process as they are much less likely than women to get tested and use ART, particularly in urban areas. While prevalence rates are more than twice as high for girls, the strategies currently undertaken are likely to narrow the gap and reduce overall incidence in the near future.
• The Economic Power block is made up of the Income, Time Use and Employment and Access to Resources sub-components. Malawi is among the few countries in AGDI Round II that have provided full data on all indica- tors in this block.
In the Wages and Income sub-component, Malawi reports gender parity in wage rates across all sectors when similar grades and tasks are compared (Figure 4). However, there are large income disparities in the informal sector. Women earn only half of what men earn despite the fact that women dominate the sector. Across small agricultural household en- terprises, women’s income is slightly higher, just a little more than three-fourths of men’s income. As the AWPS data sug- gest, it is crucial that Malawi continues to reach women in agriculture with extension services.
Malawi is among a few AGDI Round II countries that have Time Use data. There is parity only in time devoted to non-market activities (Figure 4). While women devote close to two-thirds of the time devoted by men to market activities, time spent on domestic chores indicates a six-fold difference to the dis- Figure 3a. GSI Education Indicators Figure 3b. GSI Health Indicators
Primary
Secondary
Tertiary Primary
Completion Literacy
Malawi Parity
Stunting
Underweight
Child Mortality HIV/AIDS
Access to ART
Malawi Parity
Notes: ART = anti-retroviral treatment; mortality relates to the mortality rate of children under the age of 5 years; HIV/AIDS relates to prevalence for people between the ages of 15 and 24.
Figure 4. GSI Economic Power Indicator
Wages - Agriculture
Wages - Formal
Wages - Civil Service
Wages - Informal Income-
Informal Income - Agriculture
Women in Poverty
Malawi Parity
Time - Market
Time - Non- Market
Time - Domestic Agricultural Non-
Employment Youth Unemploymen
t
Malawi Parity
Land Ownership
House Ownership
Livestock Ownership Credit Employers High Civil
Servants Professional
Syndicates Own-Account
Workers
Malawi Parity Wages -
Agriculture
Wages - Formal
Wages - Civil Service
Wages - Informal Income-
Informal Income - Agriculture
Women in Poverty
Malawi Parity Primary
Secondary
Tertiary Primary
Completion Literacy
Malawi Parity
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AGDI Gender Outlook Series
favour of women. This is a key statistic deriving the income differentials in the informal market, participation rates in the formal wage market and the wide occupational segregation in the private sector. While male youth are much more likely to be unemployed, part of the reason is that female youth are either not participating in the labour market or can be considered as discouraged workers.
In Access to Resources, women are at a major disadvantage in terms of assets (livestock, land and especially house own- ership). Due to the usual collateral requirements, women’s access to finance is very limited, leading to their underrep- resentation among employers and own-account workers.
In addition, occupational segregation is highly visible across the high civil service and professional syndicates. This stems from choices of subjects after primary schools which tend to steer boys and girls in different directions. The large disparity in tertiary enrolment rates is also directly linked to this unfa- vorable outcome.
• The Political Power block is a function of the quantity and quality of female participation in the Public Sector and Civil Society. Women in Malawi are gravely under- represented in the public sector and civil society, there- by slowing the much needed progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment.
In the Public Sector, women’s presence is highly limited at both national and local level. Since the early 2010s, there has
been a significant reduction in women’s participation in na- tional level politics. For instance, women’s representation in parliament has decreased from around 22 per cent to less than 17 per cent. This negative trend followed the major gains made between 2004 and 2009 when a 60 per cent in- crease was achieved in female representation in parliament.
Such volatility points to the lack of institutionalization of gen- der mainstreaming. There is an even more drastic reduction in the Cabinet – the latest data suggest that women’s pres- ence is only 11.1 per cent, down from 30 per cent in 2012. At local level, fewer than 10 per cent of high-level positions in local councils are held by women. Finally, a 70 per cent de- crease in women’s presence in the higher judiciary is a cause for concern, particularly given the social challenge of vio- lence against women. Malawi’s relatively weak performance in gender mainstreaming requires a strong push from higher level officials on the political scene. The training manual pre- pared by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Community Development on leadership positions for women is highly welcome as it will help to kick-start a demanding agenda.
In Civil Society, women are virtually absent from high-level positions in political parties. There are only two women at high levels in any of the 31 political parties. While women’s presence is, in relative terms, most visible in trade unions and significantly surpasses the AGDI Round II average (just below that of the leading country, Côte d’Ivoire), the opposite holds true for employers’ associations and NGOs, where women’s presence is either at par or lower than the Round II average.
Figure 5a. GSI Political Power Indicators
Parliament
Cabinet
Civil Service
Security Forces Higher Courts
Lower Courts
Malawi Parity
Figure 5b. GSI Political Power Indicators (contd.)
Local Councils
Traditional Rulers
Political Parties Trade Unions
Employers' Associations NGOs
Malawi Parity
