Employment from a Gender Perspective in Bali Province

ABSTRACT


INTRODUCTION
One of the visions of Golden Indonesia 2045 is equitable development which is expected to eradicate disparities between regions and even acute poverty.Equality of income and poverty alleviation which has been continuously sought to be reduced through redistribution and inclusive policies to reach all groups of society with 6 main steps, such as increasing access and quality of basic services for the entire population, expanding social protection including a sustainable National Social Security System (SJSN), facilitating ownership assets and encourage financial inclusion, expand business opportunities and access to productive resources, sharpen fiscal policies both spending and income that are fair and ensure community participation in social, political and economic contexts (Kementerian PPN/Bappenas, 2019).The government's focus is to create fair opportunities for all levels of society to reduce inequality.Equal opportunities in various sectors for all levels of society is an important aspect.However, the main challenge that has long been faced is the opportunity for men and women in the labor market to earn income.
Equal opportunities for women and men to compete in the job market are needed to accelerate increases in community productivity.One of the most significant issues in the job market is the lack of job opportunities and the perception of decent wages.Decent work can be defined as providing equal opportunities for men and women to obtain productive work in free, equal and safe conditions.Perceptions of a living wage are difficult to define significantly from one person to another.Decent employment opportunities can be seen through the unemployment approach and the level of inactivity from non-labor force indicators.It is also stated in the Indonesian Labor Market Indicators (Badan Pusat Statistik, 2022), that women face special challenges in achieving decent work.This challenge is none other than because women are said to have responsibility for taking care of the household or domestic activities.The Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) for men in Indonesia is significantly higher than the LFPR for women, which is 1.5 times less than that of men.Additionally, the Employment to Population Ratio (EPR) by gender shows that there are more male workers than female workers in Indonesia's working-age population.Gender issues are a hotly discussed issue, especially as gender equality is a development target to anticipate development disparities.Inequality in development according to gender can result in suboptimal potential obtained from development.The ideal condition is that men and women have equal access to their roles in development and receive equal and fair benefits.Losses or failures in achieving human development due to gender inequality as measured by the aspects of health, empowerment and access to the labor market.Indonesia's Gender Inequality Index (IKG) decreased from 2019 to 2021, namely 0.421 to 0.390.This means that 39 percent of failures or losses in human development achievements are the result of gender inequality.The IKG component indicators use proxies for risk factors for maternal mortality, adolescent fertility, education, parliament and the labor market.The calculation of risk factors for maternal death is seen from the proportion of births not in a health facility.The adolescent fertility indicator is seen from the proportion of women aged 15-49 years who have ever been married and who were less than 20 years old at the time of their first live birth.The education indicator uses the percentage of the male and female population with at least a high school education.The Parliamentary Indicator uses the percentage of men and women who sit in parliament.Meanwhile, the labor market indicator uses the percentage of the labor force to the working age population (BPS RI, 2022).1, the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) in Bali Province increased in 2020 even though it was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, while men's LFPR decreased.However, both the female and male workforce will gradually increase in 2022.The workforce is still dominated by men, but if you look at 2021, the percentage of the male workforce is 54.16 percent, down 0.31 percent.compared to 2020, while the percentage of the female workforce increased to 45.84 percent.owever, in 2022, the conditions are expected to reverse again, with male workforce percentage increasing to 54.82 percent and female workforce percentage decreasing to 45.18 percent.This shows that the population of women in Bali Province who are actively involved in economic activities is decreasing, especially those of productive age.However, the increase in the number of female workers in Bali Province also indicates that the existence of women in the world of work is increasingly visible.
The involvement of women in the economy will certainly greatly help economic development, apart from reducing gender inequality.Based on this, this article wants to discuss employment conditions from a gender perspective in Bali Province.

METHODS
This research uses descriptive research methods.Nazir (2011), the descriptive method is a method that examines the status of human groups, an object, a set of conditions, a system of thought, or a class event in the present.The goal of this descriptive study is to make a description or potray systematically, factually, and accurate of the facts, the characteristics, and the relationship between the phenomena that are being studied.While according to Sugiyono (2005) states that descriptive method is a method used to describe or analyze the results of research but does not make broader conclusions.
This research using descriptive research methods and tries to explain the state of gender inequality in employment in Bali Province by explaining quantitative data in the form of secondary sources.The data used in this research comes from the Bali Province Central Statistics Agency, as well as other reference sources such as journals, reference books, and national and international news media.

DISCUSSION
Gender justice and gender equality are closely related to each other.Gender justice is a process and fair treatment of men and women.Gender equality and justice can be realized by the absence of discrimination against both men and women.According to (Aldianto, Jasruddin, & Quraisy, 2015), this can be accomplished by giving everyone control over development and ensuring that they receive fair and equal benefits from it.Khuza'i (2013) states that gender is social "sex" in the form of masculine or feminine attributes which are socio-cultural constructions.Apart from that, the concept of gender can also be explained by the concept of nature and nurture, where nature considers the differences between men and women to be natural so that innate differences emerge in the form of naturally inherent masculine and feminine attributes.Meanwhile, nurture considers that social and cultural factors create gender attributes and form stereotypes of certain genders which are caused by what happens during the upbringing of parents or society and are repeated from generation to generation so that society considers this to be natural.
According to Khotimah (2009), gender discrimination in employment has long existed in both agrarian and industrial societies, both in terms of the division of labor based on gender and sex.However, because of the patriarchal culture that develops in society, women's positions are considered unproductive and unequal to men's work.Most people believe that women should take care of the household and that if they work outside the home, household harmony can be disturbed.Although the consequences of husband and wife's work outside the home may occur, a better solution is that the husband does not have to burden his wife with two responsibilities (double burden) at once, namely caring for children and earning a living, but instead can help his wife create a harmonious household.
The occurrence of wage inequality between women and men can be caused by human capital.Human capital according to Becker (1962) is a value added to a worker when gaining knowledge, skills and other assets that are useful for the employer and for the production and exchange processes.This human capital is inherent in its existence to workers.Concerning labor absorption, a study conducted by SMERU, ( 2001) states that the minimum wage has a negative impact which is felt by groups vulnerable to changes in the labor market, such as female workers, young workers and low-educated workers.On average, male workers are given wages higher than the minimum wage and only a few men who work receive wages below the minimum wage compared to female workers.Female workers are 19% less likely to be paid above the minimum wage compared to male workers.
As shown in Table 1, the unemployment rate is higher in the male workforce, which could be because the male population is more active in economic activities because of their responsibilities towards the family as head of the household.Apart from that, people aged 15 years and over who work full hours (full time workers) were recorded at 63.21% of the total working population in 2020, but the percentage of fulltime workers began to increase in 2022 to 66.41%.The proportion of the male population working full time in 2022 will be 70.92% of the total male workers, while female workers who work full hours will be 60.99% of the total working female population.The proportion of the male population who work full hours is always higher than women because women generally have greater responsibilities in taking care of the household than men so that even though women work, in general their working hours tend to be lower ( BPS Provinsi Bali, 2023).
According to Green (2003in Marhaeni, 2011) in his research, female managers with human capital, such as the same experience and training as their male colleagues, consistently received lower wages.Stereotypes against women can cause discrimination due to policy makers' bias in processing information about other people, including beliefs in making policies regarding one's social role.This position or position in work is what causes the development of women's empowerment in the economy to not be followed by the development of prosperity and the power to achieve the desired salary or wages.
The average wage of male workers/employees/employees is greater than that of women in both 2021 and 2022 where in 2022, the average wage of male workers is 3.33 million rupiah while the average wage of female workers is 2.59 million rupiah.The difference in wages between men and women is shown by differences in education levels and main types of employment.The highest average labor wages are for workers with college graduates, while the lowest wages are for workers with elementary school education or below.If we look at the main type of work, the service business field has the highest average wage, at 3.14 million rupiah per month, while the lowest average wage is in the agricultural business field, at 2.22 million rupiah per month (Badan Pusat Statistik, 2022).

Fig. 2. Percentage of Women's Income Contribution in Bali Province (Percent)
Source: (Badan Pusat Statistik Provinsi Bali, 2023) In Figure 2, it can be seen in general how the percentage of women's income contribution in Bali Province, from 2017 to 2019, has increased but decreased again in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.In 2021, women's income contribution in Bali Province increased again to 39.18 from 38.55 in 2020.However, there will be a decline again in 2022.This is because there has been a decline in the number of female workers and also in the female labor force participation rate (LFPR).Becker (1971in Laili dan Damayanti, 2018) found that in companies that discriminate against men, employers are willing to accept female workers only if they are willing to accept lower wages than men with higher productivity, in order to maximize their utility.This results in a lower ratio of women's wages to men compared to the productivity ratio.On the other hand, in companies that discriminate against women, the ratio of women's wages to men will be higher than the productivity ratio.Additionally, some companies may be willing to sacrifice their profits to finance discriminatory behavior.Lidya, Sukma and Kadir, & Kadir (2019) found that reducing the level of gender discrimination in the labor market is a critical factor in narrowing the gender wage gap in Indonesia.
In general, Indonesian society tends to accept the differences between men and women women as a natural thing, so it is closer to the thinking of nature theory.The participation of women in work gives rise to a dual role for women, where women are required to participate in development and help with the family's economic needs, on the other hand, women are also required to carry out the main tasks in the household as well as possible.Furthermore, the larger the family members, the greater the role of women will be in covering economic needs which are greater as the number of family members increases.The flow of working hours also influences women's contribution in earning a higher income to meet their family's needs (Nugraheni S., 2012).Purnomo (2006) stated that although this discrimination leads to a patriarchal culture, which can enable men to dominate men over women, men's space for movement is limited.Men are indirectly forced to always appear rational and masculine and not to cry, even though this is an emotion shared by all humans.The division of labor is also often constructed based on gender, where economic activities tend to be classified according to gender, whether they are masculine or feminine activities.For example, cooking, pounding rice and fetching water are tasks that can be done by women while hunting, fishing and making weapons can be done by men.The result of this is the current employment conditions which make male workers feel like they have a superior, dominative position, and enjoy special positions and a number of other privileges over women.
The employment situation in Bali Province also experiences a similar situation, women's economic empowerment is lower than men's, important jobs and high wages tend to be done by men.However, an interesting thing happened in Bali Province, the percentage of women's involvement as professionals from 2018 to 2022 has increased quite significantly, in 2022 women's involvement as professionals even reached 51.25 percent (Bali Province Central Statistics Agency, 2023).This is different from research by Marhaeni (2011) and Marhaeni & Saskara, (2018) which states that there are structural barriers to the level of empowerment of Balinese women in echelon positions in the Civil Service, one of which is caused by organizational culture, so an affirmative action program is needed to accelerate increasing the empowerment of Balinese women.Women can also be given the opportunity to show their abilities at the lowest level, namely at the village level such as the banjar adat maupun desa pakraman.

CONCLUSION
Based on several things that have been conveyed, it is known that in employment in Indonesia, especially in Bali Province, there is still visible discrimination or inequality towards female workers and male workers.This can be seen from the contribution of women's income, the number of working hours, women's LFPR and the involvement of women in positions or professional staff.This is due to the existence of stereotypes about gender, apart from that, women are also faced with their natural instincts as women in taking care of the family, which results in the contribution of women's workforce not being optimal even though their human capital is equivalent to that of men's workers.There is a need for further research using primary data regarding this matter to see what the public's perception is and the real situation in various sectors in Bali.Apart from that, the government can increase community empowerment regarding gender and sex differences, so that stereotypes about women do not hinder women's opportunities to be at the same level of empowerment as men.

Gender Inequality Index (IKG) for Indonesia and Bali Province 2018-2022
employment opportunities can be seen from the increase in the number of women working in 2022 compared to men in the type of work as a service worker, professional personnel, technicians and other personnel, as well as sales business personnel.However, the proportion of women in managerial positions still lags behind men.Decent work is the main aspect in efforts to eradicate poverty and is one of the keys to success in achieving sustainable development.