For the Third East Asian Women’s Forum

Our discussion is going to focus on the three questions: employment, income generation and promotion of women’s economic education. In this connection I would like to give an brief explanation on how to understand  unemployment answering to the question why this termin used widely to define women’s status.  
In general, this is because a woman who is employed is more likely than unemployed woman to a) have direct access and control over financial resources; b) be able to function in nondomestic sphere; c) be in contact with people other than the immediate family, and hence, have access to the world outside the home; d) be able to translate the autonomy required for and embodied in being employed to autonomy and control inside the home; and e) have exposure to and be generally more knowledgable about the world outside the home. However, whether employment does have all or even some of these overlapping beneficial effects depends on several different workspecific factors such as the nature of the work, where it is done, for whom it is done, whether cash is earned, as well as culture-specific factors.
On these three points I want to describe the present situation of Mongolia women basing on the results of the national survey “The economic status of mongolian women in the transition period” conducted by the Women’s Information and Research Center in 1997.  
The purpose of the survey was to undertake the most extensive investigation to date of the impact on women of the transition to a market economy in Mongolia.  To understand both the positive and negative impact of change on women's economic status due the transformation of the social structure, the restructuring of the labour market, the rapid growth of the private sector, a growing differentiation between registered and unregistered income-generating activities, and the commensurate changes in gender relations, family and women's participation and influenced over these processes.  Bearing in mind the affect of such a transition in post soviet and post communist societies in other parts of Central Asia, East Asia, Eastern Europe and the ex-soviet union. Irrespective of such precedents the aim here is to consider the economic status of women in the unique and specific conditions of Mongolian society and to highlight some of the principal problems facing them at this time and ways in which they might be ameliorated in the immediate future.  
The survey conducted in five regions: Ulaanbaatar city, Khovd, Khentii, Bulgan and Dornogobi aimags (provinces) involving over 3800 people. 

1. Women's participation in the labour market

The transition from a state controlled economy to a decentralised market economy led to radical changes not only in the size of the labour force in specific sectors of the economy but also in terms of the expectations, skills and conditions of employment.  Under the previous system there was no deviation from the centralised norms that governed production, labour and distribution of resources and under such a system it was much easier to control and enforce legislation that guaranteed women equal access to education and to all forms and levels of professional employment.  In a market economy the ability of the state to control and enforce existing legislation, especially in the private sector was considerably reduced and without substantial changes in labour law especially in relation to the conditions and terms of employment it was women who found themselves threatened in this new economic environment.  
Moreover, for both men and women the development of the economy in the transition period delineated enterprises, and commensurately the labour market, offering a wide range of opportunities but with a set of new and highly selective demand for potential and actual employees.  It was in the move to a market economy that the question of rationalisation came to the fore and this was most apparent in the rural areas.  Small service industries which had processed the raw materials and dairy products produced by, and for, the herding community were considered uneconomical and summarily closed.  In the urban areas it was the state service industries which were the first to down-size its labour force, precisely those industries in which women predominated.  The result was a level of female unemployment that represented the roll back of the egalitarian principles of the socialist system when the move to a free market economy was not only supposed to replace but also constitute an improvement on the previous system.  
As many state enterprises passed fully or partially into private hands or became co-operatives and as the development of new private sector business rapidly increased the structure of the labour market changed radically.  In the previous system all workers were registered with the state but with the introduction of a market economy there were basically two labour markets one formal/registered and the other informal/unregistered. And it was this segregation of the labour market which was indicative of a gender apartheid in which women predominated in the latter and men in the former. 
Universal employment was an important denominator for women’s economic independence under the previous system and clearly demonstrated women’s contribution to the Mongolian economy.  Yet in the transition period the lines between employed/unemployed, registered workers and unregistered workers were poorly defined and often statistically illusive. In the first stage of the survey 52.6% of those who declared themselves as employed were women and clearly this demonstrated that they were still had a substantive presence in the labour market.  However, where the difference between men and women is clearly illustrated is in the identification of women’s status in the labour hierarchy. 
 
Position of employees by sex

The survey confirmed that women’s status was lower than that of men whereby the ‘glass ceiling effect’ was in operation.  Women were under-represented in all significant leadership positions yet in deputy leadership positions they was a more equitable distribution of women.  This bore no relationship to education or experience but could only be attributed in all cases to the question of gender. 

                           Employees by level of school completed and by sex

Education level			male	female
Illiteracy				0.5	0.1
Primary				1.1	2.9
Uncompleted secondary		15.7	10.5
Completed secondary			29.2	24.7
Specialized				18.9	30.6
High 					34.6	31.1

87% of employed men had permanent jobs, 2.7% were retired, 9.8% had work on temporary contracts, 0.5% were on leave. As for women 81.1% of them had permanent jobs, 3.9% were retired, 8.5% had temporary jobs, 6.5% were on leave. It shows that men’s employment opportunity is more secured than women’s.

Another change on women’s employment is women’s percentage on branch of economic activity.  Women’s involvement is decreasing in former women dominated branches such as health and education. Official statistics show that women’s involvement in trade, health, finance and insurance, housing and domestic service branches decreased by 7-14 per cent during 1989-1994. Although women’s percentage decreasing some branches but women still dominating on health, education, service branches.

Percentage of employed women by branch

35-49 age group had the most high level of employment. The most high level of employment was 
35-39 age group of women and reached up to 61.3%. As for men, the highest level of employment was among 45-49 age group and reached 61.1%.

Percentage of employed women by age groups

As we see from those figures age more influencing factor for women’s employment and we call this age discrimination.  According to Pensions and benefits Law adopted by Parliament on December 1990  there are many women retired before pension age and at present “most of” them living in poor condition. They receive low benefits and can not be employed due to their age and backward qualification.

Percentage of unemployed women by age groups

In the survey 57.1 per cent of respondents were working in the state sector, 28.7 per cent in the private sector, 8.1 per cent in mixed enterprises, 3 per cent in foreign enterprise and joint enterprise, 2.4 per cent in public community and 0.8 per cent in other forms of enterprises. 

Women form the majority of those who work in both in the state sector and in those sectors in which the state maintains a controlling interest. 

Number of employees and women’s percentage 

	City	Aimag	Sum	Total	
State sector	436
54.1	234
55.6	81
66.2	751
55.8	
Private sector	260
46.1	95
53.7	23
34.8	378
46.2	
Mixed property enterprise	65
63.1	26
46.1	16
62.5	107
58.9	
Foreign and joint property enterprise	31
38.7	7
57.1	1
0.0	39
41.0	
Public property	18
33.3	12
41.7	1
0.0	31
35.5	
Other	7
42.9	3
33.3	-	10
40.0	
Total	817
51.2	377
53.8	122
58.9	1316
52.6	

As we can see form the table women constitute 55.8 per cent of employees in government enterprises and 58.9 per cent of employees in enterprises in which the state has shares.  This trend was observed most especially in the capital [Ulaanbaatar]  and west [Khovd]  regions.  While the state maintained control over a large part of the economy in the first phase of privatisation, to a certain extent, women’s interests were being protected under existing legislation and women continued to predominate in the field of health and education and in the government bureaucracy. Nevertheless, with the introduction of the second phase of privatisation and the selling off of government shares in pivotal enterprises women in the labour force became far more vulnerable than before.  In the private sector the introduction of employment contracts that invalidate the rights of workers under existing legislation are becoming commonplace.  Women who want employment are often obliged to sign away rights such as maternity benefit or family leave in order to secure a job in the private sector.
  Irrespective of the fact that such contracts are illegal and not only subvert existing legislation but make it extremely difficult for women to defend themselves legally, especially when it is frequently women who are expected to vacate the formal labour market under new labour rationalisation plans rather than men.  In the new economic climate where rules and regulations governing employment and labour relations are under review and or in flux both trade unions and non-governmental organisations are finding extremely difficult to monitor the implementation and use of legally restrictive labour contracts. The above situation is further exacerbated by the rapid growth in temporary employment in the transition period with over 10% of those interviewed in the survey engaged in temporary employment.  

Women in temporary work

While the state sector accounted for 15.8% of those in temporary employment and mixed enterprises 8.3% it was the private sector that predominated in its hiring of temporary labour accounting for a staggering 75.8% of temporary employment.  This demonstrates that the growing phenomenon of temporary employment has been generated by the growth of the private sector and is concentrated mainly in manufacturing industry and the service sector. 8.5 per cent of employed women engaged in temporary work.
If we consider this from the point of view of the labour force, and most especially the men and women in this survey, it is apparent that a substantial proportion of the labour force has changed employment, for one reason or another since 1990. Some 63.3 per cent of men and 52 per cent of women had only been in their present job for less than four years while a mere 17.6 per cent of men and 21 per cent of women had employed in their present job for between five ad nine years.  Yet women out numbered men in the category of workers who had been in their present position for over ten years accounting for 18.5 per cent of women as opposed to 12.5 per cent of men.  

Years of employment in their present job by sex

Years of employment in their present position by sex

This seems to be a reflection of the predominance of women workers in the state sector which up until recently still offered a certain amount of job security. 
The level of satisfaction that men an women expressed with relation to their employment gives us some indication of the present conditions in the formal/registered sector.  At the time of the survey, approximately one third of those interviewed were satisfied with their work and almost 65 per cent of the sample were uninterested in changing their jobs.  However, there was some gender difference with almost 40 per cent of women expressing a desire to change their employment thus demonstrating a higher level of dissatisfaction with their present situation in the labour market than men. 32.8 per cent of employed gave satisfactory assessment. 27.8 per cent of all employed expressed their willingness to change work, 7.4 per cent uncertainty, 64.8 per cent not to change work. 39.7 per cent of working women were willing to change work what showed that women were more unsatisfied with their jobs than men. Some of the dissatisfaction experienced by women was palpable.  

Desire to change job

Approximately 70 per cent of women workers were employed state enterprises, government or in joint stock companies in which the government had a sizeable financial interest.  The government had already indicated in it new economic program  that : 
For increasing the efficiency of the economy and establishing the appropriate property relations to privatise up to 60 per cent of the government property by 2000 elaborating and implementing a special program on privatisation. 
The precise areas targeted in the program for privatisation are health, education and science and in the first two sectors alone women constitute 86.2 and 70.4 per cent of the workforce respectively and in the latter just over half of the labour force.  If women have remained reasonably protected in the state sector thus far, indications are that this will not continue for much longer.  
Some of the women we interviewed who worked in the state sector had either left what were once, high status careers due to the deterioration of working conditions and the reduction of resources in theses sectors or were considering changing careers either moving to the private business sector or setting up business on their own in anticipation of further deleterious changes that might be imposed in these sectors after privatisation.  It was clear that women in once prestigious, high status careers were at risk if the privatisation program in these areas goes ahead.  
This situation is further exacerbated in rural areas where the principal employment for women is now in the state sector in government administration, education and health.  The diverse service sector which served the local needs were closed down after 1990 because they were consider to be uneconomical leaving many women without work. The privatisation of state enterprises could lead to further unemployment due to ‘downsizing’ in sectors where female employees predominate and in regions where the private sector is not growing at a rate commensurate with the numbers of men and women seeking employment.  This could have a devastating effect on the smaller isolated communities which have suffered most since 1990. 64.4 per cent of working women were married and 82.9 per cent had children under fifteen years of age. 
Women’s activity by age group

Age	Employed	Herders	Business	Self employed	Unemployed	
16-19	24.3	14.6	2.4	4.9	17.1	
20-24	40.3	13.5	5.3	7.7	8.2	
25-29	57.8	12.2	3.4	7.2	6.9	
30-34	55.4	11.3	8.2	12.3	5.6	
35-39	61.3	13.3	4.4	9.3	6.7	
40-44	54.7	10.4	4.4	10.9	10.2	
45-49	53.5	12.1	2.0	6.1	5.1	
50-54	40.4	3.5	0	1.8	5.3	
The reproductive burden of women decreased relatively at the age of  35-39 what was witnessed by the highest level of employment of this age group (61.3 per cent  of women were employed).Bearing in mind of this we should think to increase childcare facilities helping  women employed and decreasing women’s workload of unpaid work and to combine paid and unpaid work. The number of kindergartens decreased from 909 to 660 during years of 1990-95.  
In the changing economic climate and in the wake of privatisation the market placed a high demand and value on new skills.  While not able to be filled immediately the new courses on offer in special technical colleges and Universities in the areas of business and economics were over subscribed.  One feature of this was the predominance of women in the Universities in these new fields demonstrating that young women were pursuing the expanding employment areas by being selective in their choice of degree.  Conversely the numbers of young men enrolling as undergraduates in all  academic disciplines was declining to a point that in some field they constituted less than thirty per cent of the students.  The long history of women’s achievements in higher education reinforced and acted as a model for young women in pursuit of lucrative employment.  The evidence provided by our survey confirms that the numbers of women with tertiary qualifications or specialist vocational qualification was extremely high. 

Such qualifications offered women the opportunity to be employed in higher status and more secure form of employment.  Thus 71.6 per cent of women with higher education and 60.9 per cent of those women who had vocational qualifications were in employment.  Those women interviewed who stated that they wished to change their employment were also willing to undergo training or retraining in order to do so.  This was especially the case for women who had lost their original employment when certain industries had closed down at the beginning of the transition period and their skills were no longer required in the market.  For such women, retraining was the only avenue through which they might re-enter the labour market as skilled workers. Clearly, new labour demands in a market require retraining in many new areas but it remains to be seen whether women gain equal access to such training and job opportunities generated within the private sector in the later stages of the transition period.  

2. GENDER,  PRIVATISATION and EMPLOYMENT IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR

A new element in Mongolian economic life appeared in the transition to a market economy - the private sector.  The gradual devolution of social property to the market by the state had a considerable impact on all aspects of people’s lives and affected citizenship rights, property rights and women’s rights in both the public and private sectors and created a new social class structure.  Concerning the dynamics of the labour market, privatisation had a formidable impact on the economic fortunes of men and women in the transition period.  Within the process of privatisation the economic sectors in which women predominated were often the first to be closed by the state and the last to be taken up and restructured as viable private industries.  The disproportionate level of female unemployment, as opposed to that of men, indicates this. 

Employees by branches and by sex
	1991	1996	
	male	female	male	female	
Agriculture	56.2	43.8	54.2	45.9	
Industry	50.8	49.2	58.3	41.7	
Construction	63.4	36.6	63.0	37.0	
Trade and domestic service	37.6	62.4	44.1	55.9	
Transport and communication	70.3	29.7	68.0	32.0	
Financing	38.6	61.4	47.6	52.4	
Administrative and insurance	68.3	31.7	62.1	37.9	
Education	36.6	63.4	36.1	63.9	
Health	20.5	79.5	32.9	67.1	
Total	51.2	48.8	52.6	47.4	

Certainly, early on in the privatisation process men occupied higher status positions in the enterprises concerned and had greater opportunity to maintain that position in the new economy. 26.2 per cent of private enterprise owners are women as of 1996. 
There are, however, clear disparities between the rural and urban community that are not immediately identifiable in statistical data.  Privatisation has developed faster in urban areas although the number of state manufacturing and service industries that were closed down or offered for sale are similar.  Under the previous system even the most remote sum in rural areas had a comprehensive service sector in operation in which women predominated.  The question of economic viability was not at issue under socialism, services were delivered based on need but in the new economic system such services offered little or no profit to private investors and therefore remained closed.  This was most apparent in rural areas whereby the number of employees working in the private sector at sum level, for example was 33.4 per cent as opposed to 34.0  and 43.6 per cent of employees in aimag and city centres.  Moreover the private sector employed a higher percentage of the labour force in the southern and eastern zones than in the western and central zones. 

Percentage on private sector employees by region

	Western	Southern	Central	Eastern	Capital	
	private sector employees	which of women	private sector employees	which of women	private sector employees	which of women	private sector employees	which of women	private sector employees	which of women	
private	19.1	40.7	28.8	52.6	24.3	55.5	22.6	50	31.8	46.1	
mixed property enterprises	
5.0	
85.7	
12.9	
47.0	
4.5	
20.0	
11.3	
53.8	
8.0	
63.0	
foreign and joint property enterprises			
0.8				
6.1	
42.8	
3.8	
38.7	
Total	24.1	50.0	42.5	51.7	28.8	50.0	40	50.0	43.6	48.6	

	City	Aimag centre	Sum centre	
	private sector employees	which of women	private sector employees	which of women	private sector employees	which of women	
private	31.8	46.1	25.2	53.6	19.7	34.8	
mixed property enterprises	8.0	63.0	6.9	46.1	13.7	62.5	
foreign and joint property enterprises	3.8	38.7	1.9	57.1			
Total	43.6	48.6	34.0	52.3	33.4	46.1	
 
Of principal interest in this survey was the question of private sector employment and its implications for women especially when 80 per cent of employees on temporary contracts were located in the private sector.  This has considerable importance to the question of the number of women engaged in private sector employment.  Temporary contracts offer no employment stability to workers, whether male or female, but more importantly for those women who wish to combine employment with raising a family, such contracts offer far fewer entitlements and often remove women’s rights to maternity benefit, specified leave and equitable pay and treatment in the workplace.  This raised many difficulties for maintaining women’s status in the labour force in the new private sector in which the prevalence of short term labour contracts offered little or no job security in the long term and radically reduced the obligations of the employer.  While temporary employment may ameliorate problems for the unemployed it fails to offer any longer term prospects for men or women who are accustomed to job security and full contractual rights and obligations in the labour force.  As a new phenomenon, legal control over such contract employment tends to lag behind changes in the private sector and as such it offers less protection than public sector employment even during the transition period. 
For the respondents in our survey, irrespective of gender, the question of job stability and earnings was a major issue.  If we consider some of the factors underlined in the previous paragraph it is of no surprise that the highest percentage of workers wanting to change their employment were in the private sector with one third of private sector workers stating that they wanted to do so.  Interviewees identified other reasons, apart from higher salaries, for changing employment such as the failure of employers to abide by existing labour laws.  Of those private sector workers who wished to change jobs, 42.9 per cent wanted to return to state owned industry and services.  One interesting fact arising from the survey was that 40 per cent of unemployed women who were seeking work in the private sector argued that they had failed to obtain employment due to sexual discrimination.  If women themselves were already identifying gender as a factor in gaining employment in the private sector then we can conclude that overt discriminatory practices must already be fairly well established within the private sector.  Moreover, this situation is exacerbated due to the propensity for the private sector to develop specific areas of the economy such as infrastructure, heavy industry, construction and mining, all sectors in which men predominate, and consequently there were fewer new jobs in the private sector for women and no indication that this might change in the short term.  Only through the development of light industry and services might the current situation be reversed.   
In the light of such changes it was of no surprise that women were swiftly moving into the self employed sector and starting up small businesses or engaging in street or market trading.  Even women who were in registered employment were also engaged in other income generating activities to supplement the family income; a similar trend could be observed among men but women certainly were engaged in the informal/unregistered sector in far larger numbers.  Nevertheless, from our research it was clear that men were able to gain access to loans and financial support far more easily than women.  This was principally a consequence of the registration of private assets such as housing and livestock which has occurred in the transition period and it is men who have declared themselves head of household and registered all such assets in their name [See Section 5].  Consequently, women are unable to call on such assets to guarantee credit or loans from official sources without their partner’s consent.  In many cases men were also engaging in income generating activities in this sector, even when their principal source of income came from elsewhere and in these circumstances it was male rather than female business activities that took precedence.  The absence of any substantial credit or financial support for women has meant that many women cannot engage in business activities on a full time basis because few have the resources to do so.  Clearly, without a comprehensive micro credit scheme specifically aimed at business women and female entrepreneurs many will have to continue working a double day and stifle any initiatives that permit them to be self employed on a full time basis and, in some cases, expand their activities to offer employment to others. 
3. THE GROWTH OF INFORMAL/UNREGISTERED EMPLOYMENT

Commensurate with the expansion of the private sector has been the growth of unregistered labour or informal employment in the labour market. On the one hand this has been a direct result of the retrenchment of large numbers of state sector workers and on the other a means by which employed persons can supplement their incomes.  The sector covers a growing range of income generating activities such as all forms of retailing and trading, importing goods, personal services, prostitution, catering, traditional handicraft production and artisan work.  It is also a sector that is far larger than statistics demonstrate, principally because it is a source of income generation that is not officially declared or quantifiable. It also includes those who are registered employees working on a casual or part time basis, the unemployed, both registered and unregistered, as well as retirees.  All the interviewees in these categories, without exception, worked either full time or part time in this sector. This can be demonstrated by considering the results of the survey related to employment.  The number of respondents that classified themselves as unemployed constituted 24.1 per cent of the cohort who were of working age and considered to be fit for work.  Of this number 24.2 per cent were engaged in some form of trading activity, 38.7 per cent were self-employed, 8.3 per cent were homeworkers and 28.9 per cent were not engaged in any income generating activity. 

 	In other words, almost 63 per cent of unemployed in the survey were engaged in the informal/unregistered sector.  Women constituted 45 per cent of the unemployed and of this number 18 per cent engaged in trade, 34.1 per cent were self-employed, 18 per cent stated that they were homeworkers and 30 per cent said that they were not working. 33.3 per cent of the unemployed were engaged in business and 39.5 per cent of the self-employed were women. 

MONTHLY INCOME		    	SELF EMPLOYED
	MALE			FEMALE
LOW [1-20,000 tug]			58.8%			69.4%
MIDDLE [20,001-60,000]		36.4%			25.9%
HIGH [60,001-80,000 ABOVE]	4.8%			4.6%

MONTHLY INCOME		              BUSINESS
	MALE			FEMALE
LOW [1-20,000 tug]			3.5%			17.5%
MIDDLE [20,001-60,000]		63.7%			59.7%
HIGH [60,001-80,000 ABOVE]	22.1%			12.4%
 
In spite of the number of women engaged in this sector gender difference seemed to exist with relation to potential and actual earnings.  While women are well represented in the lower and middle income levels in the sector they are poorly represented in the high income group whereby more than one in five men earned more than 80,000 tugriks per month but only one in twelve women were represented in this income bracket.  The reason for this disparity is not clear and could be due to a number of factors such as the nature of the activity, the local market and transport but women themselves consistently identified that poor access to credit was the principal restraint on increasing their income from this sector.  
At the present time women constitute 37.2 per cent of those actively working in this sector but if we consider the number of women who wish to engage in some form of self employment and would do so if they could gain access to credit then this figure would double. In view of the high level of female unemployment and the radical decrease in options for women in registered employment, in the short term, this sector has become the main growth area for female employment in the transition period.  
This sector also offers women the opportunity to combine paid productive work with unpaid productive work in the home particularly those with children.  Moreover, the decline in the quality and availability of childcare services at this time has forced many women to make career changes.  This factor is most noticeable among women in the 30-44 age group who predominate in the self employed sector. 
Self employed women by age groups

All these factors are far more apparent in rural rather than urban areas.  For example, in aimag and sum centres the number of women engaged in this sector was 42.8 and 36.8 per cent respectively.  Yet in the city  34.8 per cent of the self employed were women. Moreover, in the western regions the number of women who were self employed was equal to that of men.  The most popular form of self employment for women was retailing whereby 53.8 to 65.2 per cent of retailers in the southern, central and eastern rural aimag centres were women although this decreased to between 23.8 and 26.3 per cent in capital and western zones.  
The number of women engaged exclusively in unpaid productive work in the home was very low constituting some 3.8% of the total sample.  Of this group 78.9 per cent were married, 82.4 per cent were between 20 and 34 years of age and 98.2 per cent had children under the age of fifteen.  The majority of female homeworkers made the decision to stay at home due to heavy family responsibilities.  Nevertheless, 86 per cent of homeworkers stated that they wanted to work but this was not possible at the present time for almost 44 per cent of this group.  Of the rest of this group 28.1 per cent received state benefits and 15.8 per cent were engaged in some form of income generating activity. However, 58.9 per cent had no income at all and 64.9 per cent were totally dependent on their husband’s income.  Although constituting only a small percentage of the female population it was this group who were most isolated from the changes occurring in the Mongolian economy and most concerned about their employment prospects when they were able to resume work.  A number of this group were particularly anxious with relation to the kind of employment they might be able to undertake on their return to the labour market and whether or not some form of retraining would be available to them.  This also underlined the difference between public and private sector.  Women who were on maternity leave from public sector employment felt secure that their jobs would remain available for them on their return, as specified in labour legislation, but those from the private sector either had no such guarantee or did not ‘qualify’ for such leave. 
 Nevertheless, in the present economic climate all women were reducing the time they might normally have taken away from the workplace due to concerns about their long term employment prospects should they take advantage of their legal rights to take up to two years unpaid leave after having a child. Moreover, as we have already shown the rapid expansion of the informal/unregistered sector has not only been driven by growing unemployment in general but also by the fact that for women with children under the age of fifteen it represents a more flexible employment option in the light of declining childcare services in the public sector on the one hand and the need for alternative sources of income to maintain family subsistence levels.

Number of unemployed and women’s percentage by age groups
Age	Capital	Aimag centre	Sum centre	Rural	Total	
16-19	6
66.6	1
100	7
28.6	-	14
50.0	
20-24	19
42.1	8
62.5	5
40.0	6
33.3	38
44.7	
25-29	14
28.6	20
40.0	12
75.0	1
100	47
46.8	
30-34	15
33.3	6
66.7	6
16.7	1
100	28
39.3	
35-39	15
60.0	9
22.2	7
57.1	-	31
48.4	
40-44	12
41.7	9
66.7	5
60.0	-	26
53.8	
45-49	3
66.7	4
50	1
100	-	8
62.5	
50-54	3
66.7	2
-	2
50	1
-	8
37.5	
55-59	2
50	1
-	-	-	3
33.3	
60<	-	-	-	-	-	
Total	89
44.9	60
46.7	45
51.1	9
44.4	203
46.8	
 
One factor that did not contribute to female unemployment was education.  The majority of women in the survey were well educated and those with tertiary qualifications were well represented among the unemployed.  A little over one fifth of women who were unemployed possessed a specialist vocational training while 18.3 per cent had a tertiary education.  Moreover, the numbers of unemployed women in these categories were ten per cent higher than that of men.  This would indicate that either women in employment that requires specialist or professional qualification have been the first to lose their jobs or that sectors in which women predominate have been permanently closed in the process of down-sizing and economic restructuring in the transition period.  It remains to be seen whether a ‘women first’ policy is a widespread phenomenon in the retrenchment of workers through privatisation. 
The fact that the majority of women and men who are engaged in unregistered employment are unemployed is important when considering the question of their long term employment opportunities.  Women form the majority of the unemployed but the percentage of women to men is much greater between one region to another
Over three quarters of unemployed women were keen to return to the registered labour market and 53.6% were actively seeking work and registered with the labour office.  Most of the women we interviewed were willing to undergo training to change their areas of expertise and gain employment.  As we have already shown there was a significant percentage of highly educated women actively seeking work but many argued that in spite of their expertise and education they were still experiencing discrimination in the labour market and a significant number believed that this was why they had failed to re-enter the labour market.  While men were retained in certain sectors above women employees they were also the favoured gender in the newly privatised sector and there were no indications that this trend was to change in the short term.

 4. Conclusions and recommendations 

It is clear from the preliminary analysis of the survey data here that the transition period has changed the nature and level of women’s participation in the Mongolian economy.  This is apparent in the predominance of women among the unemployed, the growth of women engaging, either as registered or unregistered workers, in small enterprise ventures and the high number of women in either temporary or contract employment in the private sector.  The generally high level of education among women both in our survey and in SSO statistics confirms that the aforementioned changes are more a consequence of economic restructuring than the potential or actual skills and education of the female labour force.  Moreover, the closure of a large part of the state service sector where female employees formed the majority of the labour force has exacerbated the situation.  The majority of women in this survey did not anticipate any radical improvement in their prospects in the foreseeable future and had taken temporary or permanent steps to resolve their situation.  Some were voluntarily leaving what were once high status jobs to engage in small business activities which were either proving to be more lucrative or offering more secure long term prospects.  Others, usually in urban areas, were taking any available opportunity to acquire new skills undertaking training courses or traditional craft classes either to improve their chances of gaining employment or to compensate for the devaluation of their earnings. 
Irrespective of the strategies undertaken by women to improve their present and future opportunities in a market economy the transition period had initiated a change in the status of women in Mongolia.  From our interviews with women they were already identifying gender discrimination as a problem in the private sector with respect to the conditions of employment, hours of work, opportunities for promotion and earnings.  Moreover, there were sufficient complaints about gender discrimination with respect to obtaining small credits or loans for us to believe that female initiatives in the business sector were being undermined.  This was primarily a problem of women’s control over family assets due to the registration of the same in the name of their husband whose permission would therefore be required to use any assets as security for a loan..  In effect, this disempowered women in financial decision making whereby for the first time women were dependent on the active support of their partners due to the legal control of the latter over what is, essentially, joint property.  
The withdrawal or reduction of state support for working mothers with respect to childcare through the introduction of a ‘user pay’ system has further encroached on family incomes and presented new problems for, and restrictions on, the nature of women’s engagement with the market.  Moreover, social changes since 1990 have further disadvantaged women as the number of de jure female heads of household has virtually doubled since 1990 and this does not take account of the number of de fato female headed households that now exist in Mongolia.  In our survey, for example, 36 per cent of the women interviewed were the principal wage earners in the household and this phenomenon appeared after 1990.  This is placing considerable burdens on women in the light of their pivotal role in productive unpaid work in the home and productive paid work in the public sphere.  Evidence presented here from this survey shows that women are seriously disadvantaged in the labour market in the transition period and this not only impacts on the economic fortunes of women themselves but also the families who depend on their income.  

In the light of the initial findings outlined here we would like to make the following recommendations:

1. The results of the survey demonstrate that there is a clear need for government polices and schemes to improve the position of women in the labour force and offer equal opportunities in the new business economy.  These would need to be closely monitored and where necessary modified to ensure that they achieve their goals.

2. There is a need for a complete reappraisal of the collection and analysis of statistical data to broaden the range of information available from this source.  This would include the presentation of a comprehensive set of gender disaggregated statistics on the labour market, for example, showing the distribution of women across the different sectors, gender differences in pay and status, the relationship between female employment and the size and age of family members and the disclosure of principal wage earners by gender.  This would be extremely helpful for identifying some of the more subtle changes that are a direct result of the transition period and would inform policy and law reform in the area.

3. The dearth of a comprehensive centrally funded service sector has been responsible for a large proportion of female unemployment especially in rural areas where additional income sources are limited.  Some consideration should be given, therefore to the direction of government and private investment funding to the re-generation of this sector through small business initiatives, as well as larger more comprehensive business undertakings.  Moreover, such funding should be geared to and dependent on the generation of employment and this would create opportunities for women with expertise in the provision of services.

4. While the level of education of women is relatively high, the nature and range of skills required in the growing private sector is qualitatively and quantitatively different than those existent under the previous system.  Consequently, there is a need for an upgrading of existing skills and the development of new ones in order to supply the needs of the labour market.  Clearly, such training should be available for both women and men irrespective of the specialist area.  Gender equity in opportunities for training and employment is paramount to maintaining women’s position and status in the labour market.  

5. Many women in the survey were either engaged in the small business sector of the economy or wished to engage in income generating activities in this area.  A comprehensive micro credit scheme specifically aimed at business women and female entrepreneurs will promote gender specific initiatives in the private sector and enable women to establish small enterprises or expand their present activities to offer employment for others.  Moreover, special rural support schemes should be put in place to give loans and credits for establishing enterprise ventures in targeted areas such as co-operative schemes for the marketing and sale of dairy products, wool processing, tanneries as well as the provision of rural services.  This would offer employment and retailing opportunities for the herding community and would principally assist to those rural women who lost their jobs in the closing of the service sector after 1990. 

6. The reduction of state support for childcare services as well as the care of the elderly and disabled has placed untenable family burdens on women.  Considering the meritorious achievements of the socialist era in the area of women’s education and employment it would be a travesty to see these undermined or dissipated in the transition period due to the withdrawal or reduction this form of family support.  Further research is necessary to identify the specific limitations on women’s employment due to these factors.

7. Indications are that the use of temporary contracts in the private sector may already be infringing on workers rights under existing legislation and is exposing weaknesses and loopholes in this area.  These contracts can legally supersede such legislation and it is women who are especially vulnerable in the labour market and, as such, may find themselves obliged to sign away their rights in order to secure employment.  The Ministry of Health and Social welfare should embark on a thorough investigation of employer practices this area in order to inform changes to existing
labour legislation especially those sections which secure women’s rights to maternity benefit, specified leave and equitable pay and treatment in the workplace.