From fields to factory – women and plantation-wood processing in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic

ABSTRACT

Industrial timber plantations and their processing have been promoted by the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) government to generate rural employment and reduce economic reliance on the agriculture sector. Using a comparative case-study approach at two wood-processing factories, this paper seeks to understand the existing roles of women in wood processing and how they compare with men in terms of employment, compensation and developmental opportunities, as well as the broader socio-economic factors that enable their employment. Findings show that women were well-represented in the workforce in both cases because management valued purported gendered attributes such as patience [ot-thon] and attention to detail [la-iat]. Demand for employment by rural women of all ages reflects the broader forces of agrarian transition in Lao PDR, including the desire for regular off-farm income to meet the expectations of a contemporary lifestyle. Gender balance in the factory workplace was found to be enhanced by mechanisation, which increased the roles under which women may be employed, and by access to certified markets by companies, which required adherence to international labour standards, including conditions such as maternity leave and carer’s leave. The prominent role of women in wood processing in Lao PDR contrasts with that in Australia because extended families can provide unpaid childcare and other domestic support to working families that ameliorates inflexible work practices, which exist in both countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Lao PDR
• gender
• employment
• wood processing
• agrarian transition

Introduction

This paper tells the story of rural women in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) who have sought off-farm work in wood processing to meet the demands of a contemporary lifestyle for themselves and their families. In the context of rapid socio-economic change, the country is striving to modernise its economy with value-adding rural industries to generate local employment and reduce reliance on a relatively less-productive agriculture sector (World Bank 2022). Before this study commenced, it was clear that women played an important role in wood processing in Lao PDR. What wasn’t understood, and what this paper attempts to document, was the extent to which gender balance was applied in the workplace and how this might be improved to increase the role of women.

To address this question, local researchers from the Faculty of Forest Science (FFS) in the National University of Lao PDR used a comparative case-study approach based on research at two contrasting wood-processing factories to assess the gendered division of labour and workplace gender relations. The research team drew on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD 2020) approach to advancing gender balance in the workplace, which seeks to ‘ensure that there are equitable opportunities for individuals notwithstanding their gender, including equitable access to employment, compensation benefits, and developmental opportunities across all sectors of an organization’. The team also explored gendered elements beyond the workplace because household social structures and a desire to transition out of agriculture also shape women’s employment pathways. The findings of this study, which highlight the importance of mechanisation and certified markets to improved gender balance, led to the broader question of why, in a developing country like Lao PDR, women appear to be playing a greater role in the wood industry than they do in an advanced industrialised economy like Australia.

The paper begins with a literature review of gender-balance issues in wood processing in Southeast Asia and the policy settings and socio-economic drivers that have led women into wood processing in Lao PDR. It then sets out the field study, profiles female workers and their roles and satisfaction with these roles, and explores the implications for their livelihoods. The discussion positions the findings within the OECD definition of gender balance and considers the implications for agrarian transition in Lao PDR and the wood-processing sector in Australia.

Literature review

Gender equity and wood processing in Southeast Asia

Historically, the feminisation of the industrial workforce in Southeast Asia is linked to the growth of factories that produced labour-intensive consumer goods for international markets (Kaur 2004; Tran 2019). Recruiting women enabled employers to build their competitive advantage because they were believed to possess gender-specific skills and ‘attributes’¹ such as dexterity, docility and reluctance to join unions (Elson and Pearson 1981; Kelly 2001, pp. 12−13; Tran 2019). Such ascribed attributes have not been favourable to the agency of women, with opportunities for better wages and promotion being constrained by weaker bargaining power. Women’s subordinate labour market roles can be disciplined, reproduced and compounded by both workplace assumptions on the capacities of women and societal expectations to contribute a greater share of unpaid work to household chores and care provision (Kelly 2002; ILO 2017; van Dijk and van Engen 2019).

These assumptions and expectations at work and home have often confined women to informal roles in wood processing in Asia, where they often work without the protective rights afforded by labour legislation, social protection and opportunities for collective action (Lippe et al. 2022). Women in Indonesia’s teak furniture industry in central Java earned only half the wages of men, since a perceived lack of specialist skills, inflexible household commitments and limited training opportunities have confined them to lower-paid finishing roles such as sanding, painting and varnishing (Purnomo et al. 2011). In Viet Nam, women were ‘not allocated to skilled jobs in furniture because they are supposedly too hard and heavy’ (Do 2022, p. 41), and prevailing cultural attitudes related to child-rearing and domestic duties have given them less job security and wages up to 60% lower than men, even for similar jobs (Forest Trends 2019).

From farming to wood factory – factors driving change for young and middle-aged Lao women

Changing livelihood expectations and the desire for regular incomes to satisfy a modern lifestyle and escape the toil of farming is driving women to seek off-farm income in rural Lao PDR (Phouxay and Tollefsen 2011; Estudillo et al. 2013; FAO 2018). The overrepresentation of women in Southeast Asia in domestic and transnational labour migration figures (LSB 2016; ILO 2021; Sunam et al. 2021) also reflects social norms in many Lao communities,² in which young women are encouraged (and indeed, take it upon themselves) to seek off-farm income to support their households and a somewhat greater proportion of young men stay behind to work on the farm (Huijsmans 2014; Manivong et al. 2014; Moglia et al. 2020). Women’s employment in Lao PDR (as it is in neighbouring Thailand) is supported by extended families, with grandparents and other relatives performing childcare and other roles that enable the transition from unpaid farm work to paid factory work (Huijsmans 2013; Wailerdsak (Yabushita) 2020; Petitet and Phetchanpheng 2022).

Once women have gained the freedom and independence of employment, they are often reluctant to return to farm work due to the cultural and social changes they have experienced (Rigg 2007; Petitet and Phetchanpheng 2022). Bouté (2018, p. 39) described how paid employment in rural Lao PDR has led to changes in peasant values,³ in which past notions of shame in working for others are replaced with livelihoods ‘now closely associated with salaried labour’ and modernity. Further, she added, the traditional reciprocity between neighbours and families has evolved to include employers and employees, so that employers who invest time in building personal relationships with their employees can expect to be offered loyalty and respect in return, even if the wages are lower.

Such changing roles are emblematic of the region’s agrarian transition, in which dependence on agricultural livelihoods at the household level is replaced by a reliance on the industrial and market economy (de Koninck 2004). In Lao PDR, this transition is accelerated by upgraded roads, electricity and other rural infrastructure, which facilitate the entry of rural enterprises and hence local employment opportunities (Cole and Rigg 2019). Such opportunities particularly benefit those who are unable to leave their villages, perhaps because of filial or marital commitments, or simply those who prefer to be back home after a period away: in both instances, employment enables them to ‘seek out and enact a rural modern lifestyle’ (Portilla 2017, p. 1271). In considering livelihood transitions, it is important to distinguish between the desire for a modern (or progressive) lifestyle from agrarian distress, which occurs when wage labour is needed to shore up traditional farm livelihoods that have become infeasible due to land scarcity or loss of natural resources (this distinction is made in the Lao context by Bouahom et al. 2004).

Employment opportunities in the Lao wood-processing sector were bolstered in 2016 with the promulgation of a Prime Ministerial order (known as PMO15), which banned native-forest harvesting and prohibited the export of unfinished timber (Smith et al. 2021). Before PMO15, most Lao timber was harvested in native forests and exported to neighbouring countries, either as roundwood or in a semi-processed state (Barney and Canby 2011; To et al. 2017). The number of employees was low and the work was both physically demanding and dangerous, resulting in few opportunities for women (UNIDO 2017). Although PMO15 forced thousands of (mostly small and informal) sawmilling operations throughout the country to close, its strict enforcement nationwide encouraged new investments in plantations (particularly of eucalypts) and their processing, along with formal employment opportunities (Smith et al. 2021). Presently, it is estimated that wood-processing industries in Lao PDR use about 2.9 million m³ wood each year, much of which needs to be imported from neighbouring Thailand and Viet Nam until plantations in Lao PDR are fully mature (GIZ 2021; Midgley 2022).

Women benefited disproportionately from this policy shift, with a 2020 survey of 87 registered forest and wood enterprises nationwide finding that they constituted 37% of employees (GIZ 2021), a figure that exceeds the 21% for women in the wood-manufacturing sector in 63 countries worldwide (Lippe et al. 2022, p. 17). However, women have also been reported to receive lower wages than men because they are allocated roles that do not require heavy lifting or technical skills such as saw sharpening (Thammavong 2019; Sato 2020). The research study presented here provides further clarity on this issue, in accordance with the research question.

Methods

The two case studies

A comparative case-study approach, as described by Goodrick (2014) and reviewed in the Lao context by Smith et al. (2020), was used to analyse and synthesise patterns of female employment and gender balance in two workplaces with a female majority, along with the wider social factors that enabled women to be involved in wood processing in rural areas. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to inform the case studies, which were differentiated by plantation type (teak and eucalypt) and market (a regional value chain and an international value chain).

The first case study was a plantation teak-processing factory in Paklay district, Xayaboury province, about 200 km west of the national capital, Vientiane. Opened in 2012, this factory purchases 1000 m³ y⁻¹ of logs from smallholders, which are converted into kiln-dried joinery for the domestic Thai market.⁴ At the time of survey (July 2020), the casually employed workforce⁵ had been temporarily reduced from 230 (130 women, or 56% of the workforce)⁶ to 120 (39 women, or 33%) due to the impact of COVID-19 on consumer demand.

The second case study was a eucalypt plywood factory in Hin Heup district, Vientiane province, about 80 km north of Vientiane. Opened in 2021, this factory sources most of its roundwood input of 130 000 m³ y⁻¹ from its own plantations on land rented from farmers, and it manufactures Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified plywood, which is sold to international markets. At the time of survey (July 2021), the factory was operating two rotating shifts and had a total unskilled⁷ workforce of 198, of whom 130 (66%) were women. In this case study, all workers were full-time employees with permanent contracts.

Research process

At each site, the research team used a mixed-methods approach to gather quantitative and qualitative data from factory management, unskilled female and male workers, and local village representatives (Table 1). Workers, almost all of whom originated from local farming households, were further split into those answering a structured survey for statistical analysis and those subjected to semi-structured interviews that provided authentic statements for richness and texture. The sampling method may be defined as directed rather than randomised because worker interviews had to be conducted outside normal working hours and were organised by a female factory supervisor in both cases. The use of directed sampling is not considered a limitation in this study because 99 (70%) of the 141 wage-earning women within the sampling frame were represented.

Table 1. Survey instruments, content, sampling frame and sample sizes, by respondent group

Respondent group	Survey instrument and content	Sampling frame and size
Mill management	Semi-structured interviews, including employment policies and working conditions, numbers and backgrounds of employees, experience with employing women	Not applicable
Male and female workers in unskilled positions	Structured interviews, including demographic profile, motive for seeking employment, years of employment, current role and satisfaction with that role, income and expenditure (Paklay only), satisfaction with working conditions, future working intentions	Paklay: 33 women (of 39 in the sampling frame); Hin Heup: 62 women (of 102), 31 men (of 75)
Female workers in unskilled positions	Semi-structured interviews, including previous and current farm system, mill policies towards women, distribution of household duties, employment constraints, use of income, livelihood changes due to employment	Paklay: 13 women; Hin Heup: 8 women
Local village representatives	Village focus groups (men and women), including previous and current village livelihoods, drivers of employment, changes in household relations due to employment	Two farming villages close to the Hin Heup factory

All interviews were conducted in the Lao language because all participants were fluent in Lao. Data from the structured interviews were entered into Kobo Toolbox and exported to Excel for analysis. Semi-structured interviews were not audio-recorded, but notes in English were typed up daily to identify trends and key quotes that best addressed the research questions.

During the interviews, the research team was conscious of their positionalities in understanding the lived experiences of Lao working women. A reflexive approach was used within the team that discussed and agreed on the main findings of the study and how they might best be interpreted. The first author has been working in rural Lao PDR for 26 years and is a capable Lao speaker. The second author leads the Gender in Forestry program in the FFS, and the third and fourth authors (both women with rural backgrounds) used this research towards their master’s degrees. The fifth author has a long-term research engagement in Lao PDR and contributed to the literature review and writing.

Results

Profile of female workers

Figure 1 indicates that typical female workers in Paklay are aged in their mid-30s (average 34 years) and married with children, whereas in Hin Heup they are younger (average 28 years) and less likely to be married and to have children. The ethnic composition of the Paklay workforce reflects its location in an exclusively ethnic Lao area; in Hin Heup, some ethnic-minority villages are close to the mill. The older age of workers in Paklay reflects the timing of mill establishment (running for 8 years at the time of survey), low employee turnover (the average worker had been there 4.1 years) and the stated preference by mill management for married workers, who were considered to be ‘more responsible’ (Paklay mill management, 30 June 2020). Compared with census data⁸ (LSB 2016), working women had only about half the average number of children for their respective age groups, at 1.3 in Paklay and 0.9 in Hin Heup. This may be attributable to their generally Lao ethnicity, mostly secondary level of education, and peri-urban location because fertility rates in Lao PDR are higher among non-Lao-Tai ethnic groups in remote areas, where educational opportunities for women are lower and cultural norms that encourage large families are more pronounced (LSB 2018, p. 82). Average household size (across both mills) was 5.05. Despite the unskilled nature of the work, the factories had attracted some women with tertiary qualifications due to limited opportunities elsewhere. In the words of one interviewee:

I studied IT for three years in Vernkham [provincial capital of Vientiane province] – after that I looked for work but couldn’t find any, so I came back home to be close to my parents. (Hin Heup, 22 July 2021)

Figure 1. Profile of workers employed in unskilled positions in Paklay and Hin Heup

div. = divorced; sec. = secondary; wid. = widowed.

Gendered labour roles and workplace benefits

All 33 women surveyed in Paklay performed roles that required endurance rather than physical strength, the most common tasks being sanding, coating, assembly and docking. This reflects their allocation by mill management to finishing jobs because women ‘pay attention to detail [la-iat] and are more patient [ot-thon] and less wasteful of wood’ (Paklay mill management, 30 June 2023). In contrast, men were allocated tasks that require heavy lifting or technical roles as sawyers or maintenance workers. Such gendered norms and ideologies were articulated during the interview with Paklay mill management:

We want to give women easier work since they have a womb⁹ and are more fragile. But even though their roles in the factory are different, they are equally respected. (Paklay interviewee, 30 June 2020)

Patience was also valued by mill management in Hin Heup, with one interviewee remarking that women had a ‘better eye for grading and more patience for quality control’ (Hin Heup interviewee, 21 July 2021).

A female supervisor from the Hin Heup mill agreed:

Working with veneer takes a lot of patience – it cannot be rushed. Grading the veneer sheets properly takes time. You have to be careful moving the sheets or you will break them – and men are not so careful. (21 July 2021)

Differences in temperament were observed by this female interviewee:

Women have more opportunities than men at the mill because they are more even-tempered [chai yen]. Men can be hot-tempered [chai hawn]. (Hin Heup interviewee, 21 July 2021)

Women in Paklay were limited to finishing tasks; in Hin Heup, in contrast, about half (51%) those operating machinery were women because the mill was highly mechanised and few positions were deemed to require physical attributes. As in Paklay, women also made up the majority of those (84%) in labouring jobs that did not require the operation of machinery (Table 2).

Table 2. Proportions of men and women using machinery at the Hin Heup mill

Role	Total (N $=$ 93)	Women (N $=$ 62)	Percent (%)
Operating machinery (e.g. debarking, peeling, trimming, gluing)	49	25	51
Other labouring work (e.g. stacking veneer, sanding, grading, packing)	44	37	84

The lighter (less directly physical) roles allocated to women in Paklay were reflected in their wages, with men receiving the equivalent of USD 282 month⁻¹ as a base wage before overtime,¹⁰ compared with USD 197 month⁻¹ for women (both men and women were casually employed, so this figure assumes they turned up to work each day). In contrast, there was no wage differential between men and women in Hin Heup, with both machine operators and labourers receiving USD 200 month⁻¹ following a probation period. Although this amount is comparable with that of women in Paklay, the permanent contracts given to workers in Hin Heup provided a greater benefit to women once paid leave and other allowances are factored in, including maternity leave of up to 105 days, sick leave of up to 30 days year⁻¹and personal leave of up to 5 days year⁻¹. According to Hin Heup management (21 July 2021), these benefits to women reflected the fair work and certification requirements of the company’s international buyers and the full implementation of the Lao Labour Law (No. 43/NA, 2013).

Occupational satisfaction of female employees

The satisfaction rating for female employees in Paklay with selected working conditions is presented in Figure 2, with a score of 1 on a Likert scale being very dissatisfied and a score of 5 being very satisfied. The data show that women were most satisfied (average score above 3) with their wages, training, flexibility, occupational health and safety (OHS) and working hours and less satisfied with company policies on social insurance and pregnant/nursing women, as well as opportunities for promotion. Satisfaction was not assessed in Hin Heup because the mill had newly opened and employees had been working for fewer than 3 months.

Figure 2. Satisfaction of female workers with their working conditions in Paklay (N$=$33, dashed line shows mid-point)

The semi-structured interviews provided some reasoning behind the satisfaction or otherwise of women in Paklay. It was considered fair that men were paid more, for example, because they ‘are given the more difficult and heavier work’ or are ‘more likely to get injured’ (Paklay interviewee, 3 July 2020). The interviewed women appreciated the flexibility of the company in permitting (unpaid) leave when needed, such as to attend family gatherings and harvest crops. The women valued incentives for good performance, such as regular pay rises, which reinforced their loyalty to the company. However, the flexibility of casual employment compromised the sorts of working protections that would come with permanent contracts according to the Lao Labour law, such as social insurance and paid maternity leave. The low score for social insurance in Paklay reflected a wider discontent with this government-operated fund, with workers feeling that its benefits were too small to be worth joining¹¹ (Paklay interviews, 3–4 July 2021). The absence of paid maternity leave meant that women were forced back to work early for financial reasons, which required buying milk formula and leaving their newborns with relatives. Although the government had encouraged workers to join the official Lao Federation of Trade Unions (LFTU)¹² to raise concerns about working conditions during tripartite meetings that included mill management, there was a reluctance among the women to do so because ‘troublemakers’ might be targeted (Paklay interviewee, 3 July 2020). With few other full-time employment opportunities for women in Paklay, positions at the factory were highly sought-after and not to be jeopardised.

Although women in Paklay expressed dissatisfaction with opportunities for promotion, only 11 of the 33 respondents were interested in having a different job and none of those mentioned a supervisor position. Low employee turnover (the survey showed that 81% expected to still be working there in 5 years) may partially explain this result, but there also appeared to be an acceptance of the gendered status quo (particularly prevalent in rural areas) in which men are expected to take on managerial roles and women feel more comfortable in subordinate roles. In contrast, women made up 8 of the 16 supervisors and senior supervisors in Hin Heup,¹³ which reflects the equal-opportunity policies of the company and their commitment to identifying and training capable women for promotion to supervisor positions (Hin Heup mill management, 21 July 2021). With several of the supervisors being recent graduates of FFS, this study validates the efforts of the faculty to establish its Gender in Forestry unit and upgrade its forestry curriculum to meet the forecast needs of industry (Phonetip et al. 2021).

Livelihood changes due to employment in wood processing

A reallocation of traditional household roles

Women in Paklay and Hin Heup reported that the opportunity to work full-time was enabled by the redistribution of traditional female duties such as housework and caregiving to other household members, including their spouses:

My husband helps a lot around the house. If he comes home first, then he will start the household duties. There is no tension between us on these issues. (Paklay interviewee, 2 July 2020)

Such redistribution of household roles enables women to maintain the regular work attendance and performance needed not only to hold down their jobs (including around shift work and overtime) but also to have a chance of promotion. Redistribution is also made possible by extended families, which, according to a women’s focus group at a village close to the Hin Heup mill, can support working women to a greater extent than nuclear families:

If the husband and wife live as a nuclear family, then the husband will seek work while the wife stays at home with the children. But more commonly, households have several generations, and they will organise the work so that it revolves around the people who would be working at the mill. If a wife or daughter works at the mill, then the others will assist with household and farm duties. (Phonemuang village, 22 July 2021)

A contemporary lifestyle with little time for farming

All interviewees reported that demand for full-time positions from local women was greater than what the wood factories could supply, with the most important motive for seeking off-farm employment being a regular and consistent income to pay daily expenses, which an irregular smallholder income could not deliver:

The best thing about this job is that the salary is regular – I will continue to work here and save money for my child to study in the future. (Hin Heup interviewee, 21 July 2021)

The income and expenditure survey undertaken by the research team in Paklay found that 59.4% of mill income was spent on household consumption, of which the most important item was food, followed by transport, water/electricity and beauty products [kheuang sam ang¹⁴]. Of the remainder, 22.3% was spent on investments such as housing and education and 18.3% was saved in some form. Only 5.3% was used to support farming activities such as buying agricultural inputs or hiring labour. Although some workers reported reasonable farm incomes at a household level, their peri-urban location necessitated higher expenses, with increasing social expectations and a desire for a modern lifestyle being contributing factors. Weddings and other social functions, for example, required visits to salons instead of simply doing things at home, and food was less likely to be sourced from the farm and more likely to be purchased for the sake of convenience. The Paklay interviews, in particular, conveyed a sense of loyalty towards the company because the wages paid over the years had been central to progressively improving their lives:

I have been able to fix the kitchen and bathroom with my wage. Now the kitchen is bigger and the bathroom has tiles and is easy to clean. (Paklay interviewee, 3 July 2020)

With fewer children than average for the general population, there was also an emphasis on education:

I have been able to pay for my son’s education so far with my salary. I hope that he will be able to study further, possibly to become a policeman. (Paklay interviewee, 3 July 2020)

The notion that working in a factory was less demanding [saduak, sabay¹⁵] than farm work was also prevalent in many responses. A focus group in Hin Heup claimed that many people now ‘don’t want to labour hard in the rain and sun’ or ‘they are tired of getting up early to tap rubber’ (Khonephouk village, 23 July 2021). Seemingly simple things such as fans to keep cool while working were offered as reasons to choose factory work over farming.

In both case studies, working women had little time for farming and would leave farm management to their husbands or relatives. Some farms were no longer viable, having been divided among siblings, relying only on rainfall in a changing climate or being rented (in the case of Hin Heup) to Chinese investors to grow bananas. Natural food sources such as fish, wildlife and mushrooms, which contribute to rural food security (Foppes and Ketphanh 2004; van der Meer Simo et al. 2018), had declined in both locations as land was converted to other uses. Of the 21 qualitative interviews in total at both locations, only one person expressed a desire to return to farming, although she acknowledged that it was probably out of reach:

My dream is to be able to have enough money to buy cattle, but where I live now there is no place to raise them. There is no community livestock area in our village, and those wanting to do so must have their own land and fence it properly. I would never borrow money to buy cattle because it would mean using our house as collateral – I would never risk doing that. (Paklay interviewee, 4 July 2020)

Overall, the case studies showed that there are mutual benefits for wood processors and their female workers. The employers have access to a willing and long-term workforce, and the women envision new forms of livelihood for themselves and their families. In short, employment in wood processing is providing a pathway for women off the family farm.

Discussion

Improving gender balance and women’s participation in the workplace

This section considers the research question in relation to the three elements of the OECD definition of gender balance, being equitable access to (1) employment, (2) compensation benefits and (3) developmental opportunities across all sectors of an organisation.

Equitable access to employment

This study has shown that women play a crucial role in the Lao wood-processing industry. Indeed, women are generally favoured over men for many roles because employers (and some employees) believe they possess gendered attributes such as patience, attention to detail and an even temper, thereby conforming to the patterns established by earlier authors such as Elson and Pearson (1981). Middle-aged women have the same employment opportunities as younger women, a phenomenon also observed in Viet Nam (Do 2022). A straightforward means for increasing the representation of women in the Lao workforce might therefore be to increase the level of secondary and tertiary manufacturing to take advantage of these attributes. But, in doing so, there is a risk that these same attributes are then exploited to reduce the bargaining power of women, leaving them with lower wages and fewer opportunities or languishing in the informal economy (as described by Purnomo et al. 2011; Forest Trends 2019; Tran 2019; Lippe et al. 2022).

Mechanisation was found to be beneficial for the employment prospects of Lao women, regardless of the type of timber processed, because it enabled them to undertake the heavy roles that were previously the domain of men. In turn, this moderated the male-dominated working environment, which deters women with its discrimination and lack of career opportunities (as described by FAO 2006). Mechanisation as a driver of female employment in Lao PDR was also observed by Kikon and Miletic (2017, p. 21), who noted a correlation between the number of women employed and technical innovations on the factory floor. There is a caveat here related to safety, however, with women unlikely to be assigned to (and also not wanting to accept) work with machinery that is perceived to be dangerous – this is also the case in Viet Nam (Do 2022). A safe working environment in a modern and mechanised factory, backed by OHS provisions that protect the reproductive rights of women, is then a useful starting point for female bargaining power.

Equitable access to employment is enhanced by the social structure at the household level of the ethnic Lao population. First, extended family households are still the norm in Lao PDR (the average household size was 5.05 in this study and is 5.3¹⁶ nationally) and were shown to provide the flexibility and childcare options that women need to participate in the workforce, including during shift work. The sense of obligation that grandparents and other close relatives have in this situation arises from an expectation of reciprocity at some future point, such as when they need care in their later years (Huijsmans 2013; Petitet and Phetchanpheng 2022). As also found by Wailerdsak (Yabushita) (2020), women felt empowered to accept off-farm work with the support of their extended families and spouses, knowing that their work–life balance could be maintained. We can contrast this situation with that in more developed countries with nuclear family structures (in Australia the average household size is 2.6 (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016)), where women (and increasingly men) with children find the work–life balance so skewed they are willing to trade off higher pay for ‘temporal flexibility’ (Fessler 2018, paragraph 3).

Second, the findings were influenced by the matrilocal and matrilineal kinship of the majority ethnic Lao population, which is still largely practised in the rural areas in which the two case studies were undertaken. Matrilocality means that it is customary for a son-in-law to move into the family home of the wife, and matrilinearity provides for the youngest daughter to inherit the family agricultural land/home in return for caring for her parents in their old age (Somphongbouthakanh and Schenk-Sandbergen 2020). Ethnic Lao women receive a notable degree of freedom compared with patrilocal/patrilinear ethnicities in Lao PDR (e.g. Khmu and Hmong), in which the division of labour between men and women is stricter, often burdening women with more work than men (Ireson 1996; FAO 2018; Somphongbouthakanh and Schenk-Sandbergen 2020; cf.; Pattnaik and Lahiri-Dutt 2022 for India). Therefore, care is needed in extending the findings of this study beyond Lao PDR’s borders and, indeed, to other regions of Lao PDR in which different ethnic groups with different kinship structures may predominate.

Finally, although it was not fully explored in this study, the increased status or prestige [piep] that comes with earning income for rural households may improve gender relations (Petitet and Phetchanpheng 2022). Notably, in all qualitative interviews, women felt that household duties had been rebalanced favourably to enable them to work (including with their spouses), contrasting with the conservative social norms and gender stereotypes more prevalent in rural areas (ADB and The World Bank 2012).

Equitable access to compensation benefits

As well as access to employment, mechanisation equalises wages and other compensation benefits. In Paklay, where the factory was less mechanised than in Hin Heup and women were concentrated in finishing tasks, women were prepared to trade off equal pay in return for lighter and less-risky work. Risk was also highlighted by Purnomo et al. (2011, p. 157) in Indonesia as a factor behind unequal wages, with men receiving better-paid jobs because ‘operating complex machinery is considered too risky for women’. In Hin Heup, however, the equitable opportunities afforded by mechanisation mean that women no longer have to make this trade-off.

The casual employment arrangements in Paklay were found to disadvantage women compared with men. Despite the highly regarded flexibility provided, the lack of paid maternity leave represented a financial hardship for female workers and forced them back to work earlier than they would have preferred. Social insurance was not provided and in any case was felt not worthwhile by workers, who may be relying on filial support in their old age, even though socio-economic transformations in rural areas are putting pressure on traditional intergenerational care arrangements (Huijsmans 2013). Although it seems logical to address these issues by recommending that all wood factories offer permanent contracts to their employees under the Labour Law (which recognises 105 days of paid maternity leave) and fully apply the law in their operations, it is not so simple in practice because, in developing countries, the strict enforcement of international standards to benefit workers can undermine productive employment and investment, particularly among low-skilled workers in small firms (Ronconi 2019). In considering the two case studies, it is easier to apply the Labour Law in Hin Heup because it supplies high-value international markets with a rigorously enforced FSC standard,¹⁷ whereas Paklay supplies lower-cost regional markets without such a standard. Similar findings were reported in Viet Nam, with women benefiting from the domestic legal requirements of American, European and Australian buyers to ensure supplier compliance with labour standards (Do 2022). Monitoring by wood buyers of the labour standards being applied by their suppliers to ensure acceptable practices will enhance the bargaining power of all workers.

Bargaining power was also diminished by the finding that Lao women (and men) felt unable to raise their concerns about working conditions through the LFTU. The inability of the LFTU to negotiate on behalf of workers seems to be a practical example of how authoritarian structures in Lao PDR delimit local collective organisation (Creak and Barney 2018). Although the LFTU is not ineffectual and plays a role in Lao PDR’s political system, it is constrained ultimately by its conflicting dual mandate of promoting industrial production for national development in accordance with Party-State goals and protecting the rights of workers (Fry 2012). Likewise, the official union¹⁸ in Viet Nam’s furniture industry was ‘not active in representing workers’ voice, either in handling grievances or in negotiations with the employers’ (Do 2022, p. 21).

Equitable access to developmental opportunities

Although both factories trained their new employees on the job, the structured induction program adopted in Hin Heup particularly benefited women, given that most came without prior experience in operating factory machinery. Overall, this meant that women could develop new and transferable skills in Hin Heup, whereas women in Paklay remained in more menial and lower-paid jobs. Although this study focused on unskilled labour, it was also observed that some women were breaking through gendered hierarchies to take up opportunities in management, including half the supervisors in Hin Heup (8 of 16). Having female role models in senior positions is an incentive for women to progress their own careers (Do 2022; Randstad 2019). The prevalence of Lao women in senior management positions and as entrepreneurs in plantation value chains was also reported by Smith et al. (2021), with such women ascribing their well-developed communication skills (another ‘soft attribute’, perhaps) with employees and government officials as critical to their success.

Wood processing and its contribution to agrarian transition in Lao PDR

Our findings are consistent with other authors in highlighting the importance that women attach to a regular income to meet the expectations of a contemporary lifestyle, which cannot typically be obtained through farming (see Huijsmans 2013; High 2014; Petitet and Phetchanpheng 2022). A constant theme of the Paklay interviews was that female aspirations had been achieved through factory employment, such as improving their houses or sending their children to study. The relatively high spending on beauty products mentioned above is a further indication of the willingness of the interviewed women to leave the harsh seasons of farm work behind for the comforts of full-time employment. In reflecting on their years of labour, Paklay women expressed a sense of satisfaction and pride in their own efforts, as well as gratefulness to the company for making this happen – such sentiments are akin to Bouté’s (2018) concept of reciprocity described in the literature review.

The overall positivity of the interviewees regarding their employment suggests that the decision to leave farming is not primarily because farm lifestyles are becoming unviable and leading to agrarian distress (see Bouahom et al. 2004) but because women perceive value in making the transition to a progressive (or modern) livelihood for themselves and their children. For many women, then, wood-factory employment offers a pathway off the farm, with workers intending to keep their jobs in the long term and indicating little interest in agricultural investment. Numerous studies in rural Lao PDR have shown that, without such local employment opportunities, many rural women decide to leave their villages for similarly unskilled and possibly precarious work in Vientiane or Thailand (UNESCO 2018; Xayamoungkhoun and Harkins 2023). By working locally they are able to remain with their children, rather than leaving them with their grandparents, as is commonly the case for migrating parents (Petitet and Phetchanpheng 2022). The findings of this study are consistent with others examining agricultural transition in Lao PDR, in which labour-oriented strategies are considered necessary to meet the consumption requirements of rural households (see Manivong et al. 2014; Moglia et al. 2020).

At the macro level, the study reinforces the findings of GIZ (2021) on the ability of the plantation wood-processing sector to generate rural employment in Lao PDR. However, as has been noted in several policy research studies in Lao PDR supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), there are high transaction costs and numerous government-imposed bureaucratic procedures for growers, traders and industry that stifle investment in both tree-planting and wood processing (Midgley et al. 2017; Smith et al. 2017, 2021). Policy reforms in this area would benefit female smallholders to the same extent as men because they participate equally in tree-growing activities at the household level and have the same rights of land ownership and decision-making (Sittivong et al. 2022).

Women and wood processing in Australia

The important role of women in wood processing in a developing country like Lao PDR encouraged the authors to compare the situation with that in Australia. According to Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA 2022), Australian women comprise only 14% of the workforce in the Wood Product Manufacturing Sector nationwide, compared with 51% for the whole industry sector. A separate Victorian survey¹⁹ found that women comprised 16% of wood-processing workers, down from 17% a decade earlier (Schirmer et al. 2018). There appear to be no accessible studies in the literature that explicitly justify this gender imbalance in Australian wood processing, although the similarly underrepresented construction sector provides some insights that are likely to apply as well. Initially, there is a lack of encouragement for Australian female high-school students to pursue careers in construction (Carnemolla and Galea 2021), and those that do show interest are deterred by a lack of gender diversity in the workplace or face discriminatory hiring practices (Randstad 2019). In any case, male bosses largely recruit from their networks and by ‘word of mouth’, which favours the recruitment of men (Hassett 2021, p. 4). Once women gain such employment, expectations of regular overtime or shift work, combined with limited provision for parental and carer’s leave, mean that retention rates are low (BCA 2013). The imbalance may also reflect the lower proportion of entry-level, unskilled positions in Australian wood processing compared with Lao PDR because gaining access to skilled positions in Australia is difficult without experience or qualifications (Hassett 2021).

Inflexible work practices in Australia become even more significant barriers for women when the additional time they spend on unpaid (and undervalued) care work at home compared with men is factored in. WGEA (2022) reported that only 23% of wood-product-manufacturing employers offer paid primary carer’s leave, compared with 55% for all industries combined. The time then spent on unpaid care at home has additional consequences for the quality of employment, with carers more likely to work part-time or in other forms of vulnerable paid employment, such as casual and contract work (WGEA 2016). Additional gender studies specific to the wood-processing sector in Australia are needed to better understand the workplace and household barriers that women face in gaining employment.

Conclusion

This study presents an alternative narrative to other Lao studies, which have focused on youth migrant workers and their remittances (Barney 2012; Huijsmans 2013; Manivong et al. 2014; Sunam et al. 2021) by examining wage labour from the perspective of young and middle-aged rural women who have remained in their rural areas and gained local employment. It has highlighted the importance of women to the Lao wood industry, where, like their counterparts elsewhere in Southeast Asia, they are particularly valued for perceived attributes such as patience and attention to detail (Elson and Pearson 1981). The high demand for employment at wood-processing factories among rural women reflects their desire for regular, off-farm income to meet the expectations of a contemporary lifestyle and to escape the drudgery of farm labour. Gender relations in the workplace were found to be enhanced and made more equitable by mechanisation, which increased the roles under which women may be employed and provided commensurate compensation and opportunities for advancement, and by access to certified markets, which required adherence to international labour standards and conditions such as maternity and carer’s leave.

As more plantations come online and more processing facilities are established in Lao PDR, a career in private-sector forestry becomes an attractive proposition for both men and women. Having female forestry graduates as role models in well-paid supervisory and senior management positions will increase the agency of women throughout the sector.

In Australia and Lao PDR, supporting women in the workplace and at home is crucial for improving the gender balance in wood-processing industries. In this, Lao PDR is at an advantage because the flexible and unpaid childcare and other domestic support provided by extended families ameliorate inflexible work practices, which exist in both countries. This finding is unlikely to be novel for many Australian women and highlights the importance of affordable childcare and flexible working arrangements in the wood-processing sector to enable contemporary Australian families to improve their work–life balance.

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the support of students and staff at the Faculty of Forest Science, National University of Lao PDR, who assisted us in the field research. The time and assistance of those who agreed to be interviewed for the field research is appreciated. Finally, we express thanks to our ACIAR colleagues Hilary Smith and Peter Kanowski, who contributed greatly to the improvement of the original manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) Project FST-2016-151.

Notes

¹ We initially use quotation marks to highlight that such attributes are purported – they represent a socially constructed, essentialised and stereotypical but quite generalised view of the gendered attributes that either are or ought to be possessed by women.

² This is particularly true of ethnic Lao (situated within the Lao-Tai language family), who comprise about 53% of the total population (LSB 2016) and are concentrated in the lowlands. Compared with ethnic groups of upland areas (e.g. Khmu and Hmong), which may be marginalised or have limited access to education, the language abilities and broad cultural affinities of the ethnic Lao can more easily adapt to workplaces in Vientiane (the Lao capital) or Thailand.

³ Bouté refers here to rural Lao people of all ethnicities, rather than just the ethnic Lao.

⁴ The domestic market supplied by the Paklay factory does not require that timber is certified as meeting minimum labour standards but only evidence that the timber has been harvested legally under Lao law. For a review of timber legality in Thailand, see Forest Trends (2021).

⁵ Workers received a daily wage only when they turned up for work and received no other benefits such as sick leave or maternity leave. Even though employment was casual, both the company and workers had an expectation of long-term commitment.

⁶ Data at 3 April 2018, as collected by Ling and Chanthapith (2018), in a study of a teak value chain in Luang Prabang and Sayaboury.

⁷ In this sense, unskilled means that no formal skills or qualifications were required to gain employment because workers were trained on the job, including in machine operation.

⁸ As calculated by the authors from age-specific average fertility rates given in the 2015 census data for all Lao women at 2.6 for women aged 34 years and 1.7 for women aged 28 years.

⁹ An analysis of the cultural beliefs and practices surrounding pregnancy in Lao women and the social value attached to their reproductive roles, including in relation to the ‘womb’ [mot luuk], is given in Sychareun et al. (2016).

¹⁰ Wages were paid in Thai baht at the Paklay mill and in Lao kip at the Hin Heup mill. Figures in USD are calculated using the exchange rate at the time of survey, being July 2020 (Paklay) and July 2021 (Hin Heup). The wage figure for men is presented in Chaisy (2021)

¹¹ Paklay mill management reported that, initially, social insurance was offered to workers, but there was little interest among workers in taking up the scheme because it requires worker co-contributions. The factory does not promote it anymore.

¹² The Lao Federation of Trade Unions is ‘a mass organisation in the political system of people’s democracy led by the Lao Revolutionary Party, presenting to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the trade union members, workers and employees’ (Article 2 of the amended Lao Trade Union Law No. 071/NA, 15 November 2017).

¹³ Supervisors were not interviewed for this study.

¹⁴ Also translated as cosmetics.

¹⁵ Saduak (convenient) and sabay (comfortable) are commonly used words in Lao to express an ‘optimal status quo’ that extends to ‘physical wellness, tranquillity, happiness, contentment’ and even inner peace.

¹⁶ 4th Population and Housing Census, 2015 (LSB 2016).

¹⁷ The FSC Chain of Custody standard (FSC-STD-40-004-v3–1), which includes the elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation and respect for the freedom and right of workers to associate and engage in collective bargaining.

¹⁸ In this case, the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labour, which is also a mass organisation under the Party-State system in Viet Nam (see Do 2022).

¹⁹ Excluding the Green Triangle (the border area between Victoria and South Australia) and Melbourne.