Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s recent announcement that women will work five hours a day but receive eight hours’ pay has triggered widespread debate across the country. Party Ameer Dr Shafiqur Rahman described the proposal as a means to ‘honour mothers’, giving them more time for family while ensuring full wages.
Under his plan, employers would pay for five hours and the government would subsidise the remaining three. At first glance, the idea might sound generous. But upon closer scrutiny, it raises serious questions about gender equality, economic logic, and social justice.
According to the 2022 Population and Housing Census, Bangladesh’s total population stands at 16,98,28,911, with 8,17,12,824 men and 8,33,47,206 women, which means there are about 98 women for every 100 men.
In a nation where nearly half of the population is female and where inclusive development depends on harnessing the potential of both men and women, reducing women’s working hours appears deeply contradictory.
If women form half the country’s human capital, can progress truly be achieved by encouraging them to work less? Is housework the sole responsibility of women? And is there any precedent for such a gender-specific labour policy anywhere in the world? The answer is a big NO.
The current state of female employment offers an unambiguous reality check. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the number of working women fell from 24.5 million in 2023 to 22.8 million in 2024, a steep decline that alarms economists and gender experts alike.
The May 2025 report “The State of the Economy of Bangladesh from a Gender Perspective,” prepared with UN Women, revealed that in the first half of the last fiscal year, around 2.1 million people lost their jobs, of whom 1.8 million, or 85 percent, were women. As a result, only 19 percent of women are currently active in the labour market, the lowest in years.
In such a context, Jamaat’s five-hour proposal risks accelerating the downward trend in women’s workforce participation. Women’s rights advocates argue that this plan, under the guise of protecting women, effectively sidelines them.
It could lead employers to prefer hiring men for full-time positions, arguing that women work fewer hours. In sectors like the ready-made garment industry, where women constitute more than half the workforce, this could institutionalise inequality just as women were beginning to gain ground.
Dr. Fauzia Moslem, president of Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, noted that the issue is not about working hours but about equality and shared responsibility.
The argument that shorter hours help mothers spend more time with their children ignores the fact that domestic and caregiving duties should be equally shared between men and women. Reducing women’s official work hours reinforces traditional gender roles rather than challenging them.
Human rights activist Shirin Haque observed that in many European countries, governments are reducing working hours for all employees, men and women alike, as part of modern labour reforms aimed at improving work-life balance.
But restricting the change only to women sends a very different message that their primary role remains in the home, not in public life, leadership, or innovation.
The policy also invites practical and fiscal questions. Who will determine which jobs qualify for reduced hours? Can the government sustain subsidies for three hours of daily pay for millions of women without straining public finances?
And what about women who wish to work full hours? Will they face discrimination or exclusion? The lack of clarity fuels suspicion that the plan is more political rhetoric to woo voters coming from the low-income groups than practical reform.
Development experts like Professor Kazi Maruful Islam view the idea as a reflection of patriarchal guardianship rather than progressive policymaking. No women’s organisation, research institute, or labour rights body has demanded reduced work hours for women.
Instead, they have consistently called for equal pay, workplace safety, maternity benefits, opportunities for promotion, and protection against harassment, which are the true cornerstones of dignity and empowerment.
Bangladesh has made measurable progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality. Policies that limit women’s visibility in the formal economy threaten to undo years of advancement.
The challenge is not to shorten women’s workdays but to create workplaces that are inclusive and supportive, with flexible hours for all genders, childcare facilities, and equal opportunities for growth.
Jamaat’s proposal, though wrapped in the language of respect and care, risks being remembered not as a promise of empowerment but as a patriarchal attempt to re-domesticate women.
True respect for mothers and for women lies not in defining their boundaries but in ensuring their freedom, equality, and right to choose their own paths.
The writer is the Senior Assistant Editor of the Daily TIMES of Bangladesh.
