Fapohunda decries gender disparity in public service workforce

Success Damian:

Professor Tinuke Moradeke Fapohunda, a Professor of Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management, Lagos State University, has decried gender disparity in public sector workforce.

Professor Fapohunda, took the position in her capacity as the lecturer at the 73^rd Inaugural Lecture of the University at Ojo on Tuesday.

The theme of the lecture was ‘What is Sauce for the Goose is Sauce for the Gander: Managing Human Resources for Sustainable Development’

X-raying the formal sector which includes the public sector and medium/large private sector organisations that employ labour permanently and regularly for stable compensations, she said, women do as much work as men if not more but the natures of work plus the circumstances under which they work and their access to prospects for development vary from men’s.

According to Fapohunda, “The Beijing Declaration confirms national obligation to the immutable rights of women and girls and their empowerment and equal participation in all spheres of life including the economic domain. The National Population Commission puts the number of women and men at about equal in the Nigerian population; so, one would in general have been safe to assume comparable involvement in the labour force.”

She maintains that the National Bureau of Statistics (2018) in its survey of Labour Force Participation Rate entirely opposes this hypothesis.

Further, according to Fapohunda, “For the ten-year period reviewed 2008 to 2017, the average labour force participation rate (LFPR) was 64.3 percent for women and 74.2 percent for men. In 2017, the national labour force participation rate of women and men within the ages 15-64 years was 74.7 percent.

“Typically, 72.3 percent of senior positions in State Civil Services were occupied by men compared to 27.7 percent occupied by women for the period, 2008-2017. A parallel model was upheld at the junior level and across cadres. During the same period, the proportion of men employed was usually higher than that of women.”

On the other hand, Fapohunda made recommendations regarding making working condition of women on campus a lot easier, “Campus services for women regarding reproductive health, child care and victim resources are required. These services participate significantly in making everyday campus life more suitable, secure and friendly for women and convey the institution's feelings about the value of professional health care for women students.”

She said the availability of inexpensive childcare profits both mothers and fathers, but mothers most frequently require such assistance to help them in balancing their childcare responsibilities with the freedom to work the hours they need to in order to succeed, as students, faculty or staff,” she stated. 

She further recommendations to universities that since women now encompass a significant number in higher education in Nigeria, both as students and staff, but continue to face a number of obstacles, higher institutions like LASU must transform to institute services that distinguish the total woman, including her rights and her responsibilities and offering a curriculum that values evenly the inputs of women and men; and ' guarantee the even allocation and success of women.”

Fapohunda also recommended that Scholarship on women and resources in women's studies must be included in the curriculum since it serves as a pointer of the value an institution places on women's contributions, as the subject of study and often as scholars, as well as the value an institution places on women and / or issues of gender. In addition, there should be commitment of resources to women-centred activities and women's centre to present a "home base" for women students plus a physical safe space for students to gather. Such centres should sponsor lectures and other women-focused public programming and provide information and referral services for women students and staff.

She said adequate victim protection services should be proffered by the University Management by way of general and more specific counselling for sexual harassment, rape or sexual battery cases which are more predominant among women compared to men.

Moreover, workshops on crime prevention subscribe to the general environment on campus. This lecture recommends (self-defense) workshops that allow women to feel more comfortable with themselves or with the campus environment because this displays an institution's concern for the welfare of women on campus. Again, women must maintain obligation to mentor younger women to assume leadership.