When Flexibility Is Not Really a Choice
Flexible work is usually presented as freedom. For many women in Cambodia's informal economy, however, flexibility can mean something more complicated.
A 2025 UNDP study found that women's employment choices are shaped not only by skills or available jobs, but also by expectations surrounding family care and ideas about what kinds of work are considered appropriate for women. Informal jobs can offer flexible hours and immediate income, while formal employment may bring social security and greater financial independence, but also rigid schedules, paperwork, costs, and fears of discrimination.
This creates a paradox.
A woman may “choose” flexible informal work because she needs time to care for children or older family members. But if society already assumes that she will perform most of that care, how free is that choice?
This is why I think discussions about women's economic empowerment have to look beyond the workplace. Expanding formal job opportunities matters, but those opportunities mean little if women cannot realistically take them.
Childcare, eldercare, workplace flexibility, and social expectations may seem separate from employment policy. In reality, they help determine who gets access to secure work.
Sometimes inequality is not about being denied a choice. It is about having choices shaped by responsibilities that were never equally shared.
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