MANILA: Women make up a larger share of contractual positions in government, while men dominate both casual work and politically linked appointments, according to an analysis of Civil Service Commission (CSC) data by University of the Philippines Diliman professor and Inquirer data scientist Dr. Rogelio Alicor Panao.
The findings are based on data on non-career personnel, who account for about 11% of the Philippine government workforce. While this segment represents a minority of public employees, Panao said its internal distribution shows a distinct gender pattern across different forms of employment.
“What emerges is not a neutral distribution of employment but a gendered structure of placement,” Panao said.
Women account for 62.6% of contractual positions, making them the majority in appointments typically tied to technical, professional or project-based work. These positions often support government operations but remain dependent on contract renewal.
Panao said contractual roles make up a significant part of the bureaucracy’s administrative and technical workforce, despite lacking the permanence associated with career service positions.
“These appointments are typically project-based or time-bound, requiring technical or professional expertise but remaining contingent on renewal,” he said.
The data show a different pattern among casual workers, where men comprise 56.7% of positions. Casual appointments are generally associated with short-term or support-oriented work, often without long-term security.
Beyond employment precarity, men also hold a larger share of positions tied to political authority. Based on CSC data, men account for 73.3% of elective posts across local and national government.
Men likewise comprise 60.3% of coterminous positions, which are linked to elected officials and depend on trust-and-confidence appointments.
“Men are overrepresented at both ends of the non-career spectrum,” Panao said, adding that the figures suggest gender distribution within non-career government work follows a layered structure rather than a uniform pattern.
Panao said women appear concentrated in technical and contractual roles that support day-to-day government operations, while men are more represented in both politically connected positions and more vulnerable forms of casual labor.
“Women are clustered in the technical and contractual middle, while men occupy both the apex of political authority and the more precarious base of casual work,” he said. - Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
