Feminised Recession: Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on Women Workers in the Philippines

Marie Clar Labtik (50) collects shells to make jewellery, five months after Typhoon Haiyan in Pooc, Bantayan  “We are poor. Because of the typhoon, we can’t rely on our husband’s work. We must work together. Women should be good models to their children and the community.”  Women like Marie Clair are among the many fisherfolk of Bantayan who rely on the sea for their survival, and who remain at risk to extreme weather events like Typhoon Haiyan.Photo: Tessa Bunney/ Oxfam
Paper author: 
Oxfam in the Philippines
Paper publication date: 
Tuesday, June 1, 2010

This study on the effects of the global financial crisis has shown it as having impacted mainly on the manufacturing sector of Philippine economy where major industries have been set up primarily to service the needs of foreign markets. It so happens that such industries – electronics, semiconductors, garments – employ women workers for the most part. And as the study has established, it is women workers who have been affected the most by the crisis, losing jobs as factories closed down on cue of the dip in the demand for their products particularly in the markets of the developed world.