Gender Implications of the CARICOM single market

The CSME seeks to deepen and expand economic and trade liberalisation in the region and mimics all the main negotiating areas found in current international trade agreements, particularly those in the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), as well the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Being an agreement which focuses on liberalisation, the CSME can be expected to have the same range of impacts on the lives of women and men as do other trade liberalisation agreements. The changes that will take place in the lives of men and women as a result of CSME, EPA, and FTAA will also affect the power relations which currently exist between women and men. These effects can be anticipated because the assumptions that inform the crafting of the CSME, and all other liberalised economic and trading agreements are gendered.

When the CSME takes effect, it is not just Caribbean firms that will trade in the single market; and significantly, all firms will operate on the basis of internationally accepted rules of economic and trade liberalisation.

The effects of these issues will be experienced differently by women and men, boys and girls because of their distinct roles in society, the differences in their access to opportunities and productive assets, and importantly because of the distinct ways in which they participate in social, cultural, political and religious decision-making. In the Caribbean these various impacts are further nuanced by race and class. The CSME will have a multiplicity of implications for the lives of men and women because it will affect the economy in terms of Balance of Payments, consumption, employment, and levels of poverty. There will also be effects on local policies designed to promote local economic development, and those laws designed to protect human rights and freedoms.

The employment effects can be several in just one sector. For example, CSME has a role in reconfiguring CARICOM economies to emphasize expansion of the services sector. The services sub-sectors that are seen to be potentially beneficial for CARICOM economies – communications, off-shore banking, insurance, the money market, and other financial services – are areas in which only a very limited number of Caribbean nationals, and primarily men, are currently qualified. Economic and trade liberalisation within CSME will facilitate investing firms to bring in their highly skilled personnel under the terms of “national treatment.”

This competition for employment from ‘foreign’ sources in the high end of the labour market can trigger several responses. Where men who are currently qualified access any of these jobs they will have to function in a much more output oriented environment, demanding many more hours at the computer, networking at social events, and staying ahead of the game. The gendered implications include a greater drain on women’s time, energy and budget to manage the home alone, to entertain at home, and to appear at social functions important to their partners. Another response will be migration of women and men in search of competitive training outside of the Caribbean region. Those who can’t consider migration will enroll, from home, in the programmes of extra-regional universities offering the required training. The financial implications of these options suggest that CSME can potentially impact on the lives of women and men by the changes it will bring about in family life, reordering of their priorities, and extension of the number of hours women work at productive and reproductive tasks, as well as skills development.

At the low end of the services market are many women and men who do not belong to the educationally and technically skilled categories of persons who have been prioritised for the privilege of free movement across CARICOM, although in principle, under CSME, all persons will eventually be able to enter CARICOM countries to look for work. Poor migrant workers, both women and men, usually enter domestic work, gardening, construction, and bar or maid tourism services. An unfortunate outcome of this fact to date is that CSME workers, some of them undocumented, are exposed to conditions they aught not to encounter in member states that are party to the notion of shared CARICOM citizenship. Both men and women workers, and the family members who accompany them, have become extremely vulnerable to inhumane practices by unscrupulous employers, landlords, and certain service providers. The lower social status of women compared to men often translate into greater challenges for the former to access good living conditions and social services at affordable prices.

In the context of this unexpected outcome of the CSME human rights standards are deteriorating for both nationals and migrants on the basis of competitiveness in the labour market. National laws designed to protect human rights and freedoms are coming under pressure through a lowering of the degree of compliance, even in respect of citizens, due to expansion of the reserve labour pool. Affected migrants from member countries of the CSME seem unable to access the benefits of these laws either because they are not unionised, are undocumented, or because relevant officials do not recognise that they are entitled to “national treatment”. Gender segregation in the workplace suffering greater employment related hardships.

The effect of trade liberalisation on government revenue will intensify as implementation of CSME (EPA and FTAA) eliminates tariffs and quotas. While CSME can serve to increase intra-regional trade, it also opens each member country’s market to cheaper extra-regional goods that compete unfairly with nationally produced goods. This has the effect of undermining the local productive sector and lowering national tax revenue. Women and men will have to pay higher taxes to make up for the shortfall in government revenue, at the same time that levels of unemployment will be rising, and wages will be falling in the performing sectors. Governments sometimes try to mask tax collection by raising the PAYE threshold (for example, to $13,000 to $15,000 to $17,000 per annum over three successive years). The long-term revenue stream is however protected through increases in NIS deductions over the same period. Women whose incomes were already below the income tax threshold and remain that way during all three years will pay the increases in NIS. They do not enjoy any measure of relief as do persons within the PAYE range. Women so affected will experience declining spending power and real hardship in meeting a critical need such as the bus fare to retain very precious jobs.

In the face of the widespread application of Value Added Tax (VAT) across the CSME, new revenue collection schemes also have serious social consequences. The multiplier effects on state and household income will have a debilitating effect on women of all ages and classes, and their families, in the context of the region’s fertility profile, dependency ratio, and extended family forms. Enterprising women and men, who find their efforts to create their own employment hampered, will suffer more stress related illnesses, at a cost to the state both in terms of treatment and loss of productivity with a vicious effect on the tax burden.

It might be argued that the influx of cheap goods under CSME will compensate for reductions in disposable income. This benefit will be short-term at the household level and has budgetary implications at the national level. At the household level women quickly find out that cheap goods are cheap goods. They have little durability and have to be replaced in a shorter time and leads to higher expenditure in the long run. Cheap foods are not nutritious foods and the cost of correcting problems resulting from poor nutrition is higher in terms of health care and loss of productivity at both household and state levels.

The macroeconomic effect of cheap goods importation is significant. Cheap goods are produced by cheap female labour in exporting countries. CSME members competing with each other for market share in the region will be driven to exploit the “cheap” labour of their women citizens in order to retain competitiveness. The more cheap goods CSME countries import and consume, the more they support the competitive advantage of the exporting country. Should an importing country decide to adopt a strategy of producing goods cheaply also, its women will feel the pinch of lowered wages.

The share of the national earnings contributed by industries producing these cheap goods will be minimal in comparison to existing sectors. Through cheap female labour, women’s contribution to the economy is kept lower than men’s contributions. Such a strategy is therefore economically counter productive and undermines CARICOM governments’ efforts to meet their international commitments to gender justice. Cheap goods are produced by processes which normally do not attract male labour, thus the proliferation of “cheap goods” industries in a country lowers employment opportunities for men – who blame women for taking all the jobs. The tensions generated between men and women in the public and private spheres negatively affect the quality of their lives and have repercussions in health, education, and labour sectors of the economy.

What can Women Expect to Benefit from the CSME Although experience with economic and trade liberalisation in the region thus far does not give cause for hope, an optimistic scrutiny of the articles of the CSME reveal a range of potential advantages of women. CSME could help to relieve poverty and create new opportunities for women’s advancement if implemented with attention to gender equality. [1]

When Agriculture is examined under the CSME it is clear that Article 34 – (f) which emphasizes non-discrimination in ensuring access of non-nationals to land, buildings and other property could be of benefit to women bearing in mind their traditional interest in food security and food sovereignty. Agricultural policy article 57 – 1 (f) must recognize that access to and ownership of land is still a major issue for women in agriculture and if implemented in a manner that increases their property base could assist their access to credit for ventures that add value to agricultural production.

The large majority of hagglers, hucksters and agricultural traffickers are women who operate with great industry negotiating language and currency barriers in the region. Article 44 – 1 (c) and (f) which speak to measures to facilitate the exercise of rights, abolition of exchange controls, and free convertibility of currencies, could assist such women in their self employment initiatives. This would also benefit the Informal Commercial Importers who travel across the region to purchase durable goods for resale in their home countries. Many of these women report, happily that the attitude of customs officers towards them has improved considerably over the years. Hopefully, CSME can reinforce this trend.

Shipping remains a sore point, especially for the small inter-island agricultural traders who lose as much as 20% of their goods per voyage due to poor shipping conditions. Transport policy article 44 – 4 could be of special benefit to women in agriculture, should regular shipping between islands, and refrigerated storage on vessels available. Trade policies in the CSME that speak to subsidies to the agricultural sector, and action against dumping, could enhance women’s agricultural production and protect their internal markets.

In the area of Services CSME could benefit women with various categories of skill to move around and respond to the need for service providers in the regionalised market. Women across the region have been pursuing higher levels of education and training. This is an important contribution to enhancing the human resource capacity of the region. Gender sensitive implementation of Article 35 – I which provides for the acceptance of evidence of qualifications, access to, and engagement in employment and non-wage earning activities in the community would be of real benefit. This would allow women to move with their children and other dependent family members, if necessary. Articles 45, 46 – 1 and 4 (a) could favour women who are university graduates, or sportswomen, in the first instance.

Industrial Policy articles 51 – 1 and 2 (d) and (f) may hold some possibilities for women. Women in the region are known to take advantage of all educational programmes. They are also important preservers of culture and keepers of natural resources. Intellectual Property Rights article 66 is a potentially rich area for women in the indigenous populations of Belize, Dominica, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. If the necessary attention is paid to disparities in women’s traditional access to investments, financial and technical resources, Articles 142, 143, 154 which speaks to Disadvantaged Countries, Regions, and Sectors could be of benefit to women. Similarly Competition policy and Consumer Protection article 184 could benefit women by recognising their principal role in the process of social reproduction.

Engendering the CSME There is an absence of a gender informed perspective in the CSME; that is, the recognition that being male or female affects one’s possibilities in the economic sphere. As presently constituted the CSME accepts women as a source of cheap exploitable labour and does not seek to transform these self-sufficient human beings into citizens enjoying the right to an equitable standard of living. In recent years the Caribbean Community has recognised the value of the reproductive and productive work of women and this awareness must now be infused into the implementation of the CSME.

National governments can admit that the shift from agriculture and manufacturing to services is not creating new jobs in sufficient numbers, at family and living wage levels, to compensate for employment lost in these traditional sectors. CSME must therefore place greater emphasis on people and continuously work towards creating and environment that will enable young women and men to use their energy and creativity in the development of lucrative cultural industries.

Governments, firms and trade unions can increase the demand and use for social data and use those in continuous evaluating of the real gains from the CSME to the people of the region. Recognition of the limits of purely economic measurements of progress is currently widespread. The CSME will not occupy a purely economic space. It will also unfold in a social, environmental and political space. Alienation of the region’s women and men of all ages and classes from the implementation of the CSME is already prevalent because they do not see the benefits in it for them and their families. It is not too late to refocus the CSME. The “Development Box” in the CSME may be a useful entry point for revisiting gender blindness and social issues.

The CSME is most glaringly gendered in that it is designed for the integration of economies and enterprises and treats people as mere factors of production. This factor is afforded the least mobility in the arrangements of free movement. Hassle free travel is not guaranteed in the CSME. Women agricultural traffickers, informal commercial traders, construction workers, general labourers, tradesmen, seamstresses, hair dressers, caterers and other small entrepreneurs and service providers can expect both class and gender discrimination at ports of entry simply because the CSME does not put their welfare at its center. Their commitment to regional integration may never be in their favour within the CSME.

As larger enterprises move to more competitive CSME location it is these categories of workers who will be taxed to buffer revenue shortfalls in corporate taxes and income tax lost through the displacement of workers. The current concentration of women in low paying jobs in member countries can only increase as CSME heightens the quest for competitiveness in the regional market. Men cannot be sure that they will get the higher levels of technical and professional jobs for which they train as an open market attracts extra-regional investment accompanied by the highest tier of skills. Poverty levels are already too high in a region where former generations have known the pain of enslavement and disenfranchisement. The CSME must be crafted and implemented to enhance the quality of life, not to unwittingly destroy it. Difficulties suffered by migrants could lead to ill feelings toward and poor perceptions of receiving countries, and undermine efforts aimed at regional integration.

The story is told of a young man with a bird in hand who tested the wisdom of a blind woman. “Tell me, mother, is the bird living or dead?” After thinking a while she said, “the power is in your hands whether the bird lives or dies.” Well she knew that if she said “the bird is alive”, he would kill it; and if she said “the bird is dead”, he would let if fly. The power is in our hands to create a just CSME and a just Caribbean society.