CEDAW/C/PHI/5-6 education of young boys and men, who have been drawn to fight for one Muslim rebel group or another (Abitona 2002). Hence, while simple literacy rates among population 10 years or older in the other Philippine regions hover around 90 percent or more, that for the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao is a low 74.5 percent, with male literacy rate (75.6 percent) exceeding that for females (71.4 years). b. Property rights. While Philippine laws support gender equality in property rights, in practice, men are considered to be the major property owners. There is some evidence that propertied parents leave lands to sons but ensure the future of daughters by investing in their education (Quisumbing 1990). This enables men to gain access to higher, collateralized loans as it keeps women’s access to credit limited to smaller loans. Moreover, although women are allowed by law to enter into contract without their spouse’s signed agreement, many financial institutions continue to require the male partners’ signature on contracts. In other parts of the country, too, customary laws prevail that traditionally discriminate against women and girls as indicated in Article 15. c. Work and gender division of labor. In many places in the country, the responsibility of managing or running homes and ministering to family needs rests with women. Low wages and high costs of living have pushed many couples to work, with their earnings further supplemented by whatever their children can earn. In households with young children that require intensive care, women’s home production time is at least double that of men (Illo 1997). Adding this to the hours worked by women in wage and/or market production activities results to the much-cited women’s double work burden. Over the past decade or so, more and more urban couples have turned the care of their children over to province-based grandparents, contenting themselves simply with weekend visits. This arrangement has become necessary for households that could not afford domestic helpers and where couples are away from home from early morning to late evening, because of the worsening traffic conditions in the city. In some Muslim groups, women’s mobility outside the home is constrained, thereby limiting their access to gainful occupation, including trade. The lower educational attainment of many Muslim and indigenous women also places severe constraints to high-wage jobs. Norms about gender division of labor are observed not only by households but also by firms and employers. This is apparent in the assignment of tasks at work and employers’ preference for a particular sex for certain tasks. d. Family size and control over women’s body. The Philippines consistently registers a high population growth rate, much higher than neighboring countries. In a largely Catholic country, artificial contraception as a family planning or population management is a contentious issue, sometimes pitting the Catholic Church against the State. Family planning programs have generally focused on women’s fertility and information campaigns are directed solely to women although decisions about contraception often rest on the male spouse. This programmatic flaw perpetuates a chain of events that affect women’s labor force participation and employment: frequent pregnancies, large family size, and continuous demand on women’s time for childcare. In recent years, the government has recently adopted the Catholic Church line, by promoting responsible parenthood and natural family planning, adversely affecting and retarding the country’s family planning program. 35