Gender Disaggregated Data of Graduate Students in Masbate, Philippines: An Exploration to Their Gender Roles

Gender disaggregated data captures the real need, contribution and benefits of the agency’s clienteles. It improves project effectiveness and sustainability. Hence, the study explored to determine the gender disaggregated data of Dr. Emilio B. Espinosa Sr. Memorial State College of Agriculture and Technology (DEBESMSCAT) graduate students. A quantitative research method was used and the respondents were the graduate students enrolled in academic year 2017-2018. A structured survey questionnaire adapted from the Commission on Audit was also employed. Gender roles along economic empowerment, social development rights and protection, access to security, justice and peace, environmental climate change and gender responsive governance were assessed to come up with a Gender and Development (GAD) agenda for graduate students and inputs to GAD Plan and Budget client-focused activities, also GAD policies were formulated to ensure the quality of service to the clienteles.


Introduction
Gender-disaggregated data (GDD) is collecting of information on the diverse experiences, needs, interests, and access to opportunities and resources of men and women from a sample group that includes both sexes. It is necessary for the government agency to hold the GDD because improved knowledge led to better performance (money, promotion, etc.), and these advantages of course applied to both women and men in society. GDD captures the true need, contribution, and benefits of the agency's clienteles. It is not only about the differences between what men and women do or how they seem, it is also about the information about their unique affects, risks, and rewards.
Gender Disparity in Development (GDD) serves as a starting point for monitoring progress toward gender equality in areas such as employment, earnings, decision-making authority, resource access, and project conception. All women and men, girls and boys, are guaranteed equal rights under the Philippine constitution. In a similar vein, gender is widely acknowledged as a critical factor in national and international development initiatives. The RA 9710 Magna Carta of Women (MCW) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) recognize gender equality as a cornerstone of human capital development. Gender mainstreaming is seen as a way to reduce the gender gap across all demographics as the awareness of gender becomes a national priority throughout education and other sectors. Despite the many years of GAD projects and efforts, not every government agency has seen their value.
The MCW indicators (attached to the Memorandum Circular) require timely, accurate, and sex-disaggregated data to be generated by all government entities tasked with implementing provisions of the MCW and its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR). Organizations need to consistently gather and provide sex-specific data and statistics in support of the MCW indicators that are of interest to them. These records must be kept in the agency's GAD database or comparable system, where they will be regularly updated and utilized to inform the agency's policy and program decisions on gender equality in the workplace. Republic Act 10625, also known as the Philippine Statistical Act of 2013, directs the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to continue its support for primary data collection on MCW indicators in accordance with its mandate to coordinate and resolve agency and sectoral concerns on statistical matters (PCW Circular Memo No., n.d.).
Having women as well as men in the professional workforce is a known productivity booster. In addition to increasing production, investing in both sexes in society increases 78 | International Review of Social Sciences Research, Volume 2 Issue 3 empowerment, which in turn lessens tensions and creates synergy-building among men and women in various agencies. Further, there are very limited studies conducted along GDD in the Philippines. As a result, a GDD research was done among DEBESMSCAT's graduate students in order to map the institution's gender gaps and include them into the GAD plan and budget under the direction of the established framework and policies and in accordance with government mandate.

Methodology
The study employed convergent parallel mixed method of research with qualitative and quantitative data collected simultaneously but analyzed separately. The respondents were the 274 DEBESMSCAT Graduate School Students for the Academic Year 2018 -2019. Complete enumeration of the respondents was employed since the data were gathered during Graduate School activities and enrolment period. Thus, there is a 100% turn out of the questionnaire and saturation of the data was achieved. Figure 1 is the framework used in the study.

Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Commission on Audit (COA) and Philippine
Commission on Women (PCW). This will help in increasing the scores of the College during the conduct of Gender Mainstreaming Evaluation Framework. Thus, the study endeavored not just to comply but also to put up stronger mechanisms in addressing client focused gender issues in the province.
The survey tool used was a standardized, three-part questionnaire. In the first section, respondents' sexes and marital status were determined based on their demographic profile. The second section focuses on the gender roles they played, including the reproductive, community, and productive functions. The third component is knowledge of GAD legislation and requirements. The last component is awareness on the Constitution's provisions on Security, Justice, and Peace. GAD specialists inside the institution evaluated the questionnaire in their capacity as GAD focal persons. Complete enumeration was utilized and 100% turn out of the questionnaire was achieved.
After receiving clearance for the idea during an internal review, the researcher made a request to carry out the study in the form of a proposal and then moved on to the next step, which was the collection of data. Data were compiled at the graduate student congress, which was attended by all of the students. The students who were not in attendance while the data collection was being carried out were questioned over the phone and in person when their courses were being held.
The ethical considerations in research that were upheld in this study were respondents' informed consent, the confidentiality of the data collected, and anonymity. These issues were taken into account in order to prevent as much emotional, physical, and psychological harm as possible.
Since the study is quantitative in nature, the data was analyzed utilizing frequency and percentage distribution. Hence, a percentage frequency distribution is a representation of data that indicates the proportion of observations for each data point or collection of data points. It is an exceptionally valuable technique for expressing the relative frequency of survey replies and other data. It turns out that most of the people who went to graduate school were women. This means that in the Province of Masbate, women tend to go to college and work in large numbers in their chosen fields. This is different from a study done by Food and Agricultural Organization (2007) in the Sex-Disaggregated Data in Kenya where men are more educated than women and that women's academic success is often overlooked. Therefore, there are a lot of women in Masbate's professional group, and they have the chance to go to graduate school. However, this is only true for teachers; more needs to be done in other professions and positions in the province to find out what the real role of women is in Masbate's growth.

Results and Discussion
The number of single professionals was found also in table 1. This means that single professionals have a lot of time to study because they do not have big responsibilities like raising their own families. But there are a lot of married professionals who are also going to graduate school. This shows that they can handle having a lot of responsibilities at once. Their gender roles need to be checked to see if they can do more than one thing at home and at school. In addition, a mapping of different situations for married professionals can be done to understand their situation, and the graduate school can come up with a program to help and encourage them to finish the course.   empowerment, but they are also empowered socially and emotionally, which leads to increasing openness, compassion, and tolerance. Moreover, women's empowerment is a critical component of the primary methods of progress in the development process (Batool et al., 2021).
In terms of reproductive role, it is clear that the majority of respondents are of childbearing age with school-aged children. It should be mentioned that less than half of the respondents are married to partners who do not share or manage home responsibilities or roles with them. If this scenario persists, various burdens at home may be perpetuated, and respondents may experience emotional burnout. According to Weißenfels et al. (2022), the essential characteristic of burnout is emotional fatigue, which is defined by a genuine stress response that is closely connected to job overload.
Furthermore, both sexes participate in professional/civic/religious/cultural/sports/other community groups or associations. Although the proportion is quite low, it suggests that a greater emphasis on taking active involvement in community activities should be promoted. As a result, gender roles are crucial in GDD because they serve as the framework for all actions to be executed in client-focused programs. Gender roles of respondents along economic empowerment (a. Production, Reproductive, Community/Politics role) of graduate students defined that they understood well the empowerment of both sexes. It implies that both men and women may work together to advance economic growth in Masbate. Women are recognized as essential human beings in the education sector, which is why data reveals that women may have control over their resources, play a reproductive role, and actively participate in community activities. Table 3 shows the percentage of respondents who are aware of GAD-related regulations and directives. It is clear that the respondents' familiarity with the aforementioned GAD statutes and directives is low. This implies that public and private acts of violence against women and girls may persist because of widespread ignorance, which in turn perpetuates gender disparities and inequality between women and men in all communities. To achieve social and institutional change that results in sustainable development with equity and growth, it is essential to achieve gender equality, which is defined as the idea that all people, regardless of their gender at birth, should have the same rights, responsibilities, and opportunities (Tan et al., 2020). Since the respondents are educators, they will not be able to promote gender equity and inclusion in the classroom due to their lack of knowledge of these requirements.  Therefore, a gender mainstreaming strategy is required to help both men and women reach their full potential in the workplace. Not only does GAD work to include women in policymaking and planning, but it also looks for ways to improve social and gender norms so that men and women may both take advantage of new chances for growth (Esteban -Pulmano, 2016).
Based on the responses of the participants shown in table 4, the proportion of those who are aware of the Constitutional provisions for Security, Justice, and Peace is small. The biggest percentages of respondents reported experiencing physical harm (32.01%) and mental suffering (30%) during their lifetimes. The data also indicates that both male and female respondents experienced sexual harassment and advances in the workplace. 2 Issue 3   Table 4 Awareness on the Constitutional provision on Security, Justice and Peace

Questions/Indicators Female (%) Male (%)
Are you aware of the Constitutional provision on Security, Justice and Peace? 38.10 25.60 Have you experienced any of the following? Although few replies were received from respondents on various types of violence and harassment, it is thought vital to address gender-based violence in the workplace since it may impede the development of these educators' full potential and impact their job productivity.
Whether violence happens inside or outside the workplace, the negative repercussions of genderbased violence on the workplace are severe (United Nations, 2011). Similarly, Agbaje et al.
(2021) finds a significant frequency of sexual harassment in contexts of higher education. In addition, gender-based violence causes physical and emotional suffering that may render a victim incapacitated, increase absenteeism, and reduce job productivity.
However, the table reveals that the majority of respondents who had experienced various forms of violence were female. This is similar to the findings of U.S. Aid (2020) that in several public and private areas, women are in a more precarious situation than males. Even in officially regulated employment, maltreatment is prevalent. Consequently, in light of the aforementioned experiences, the organization must have clear rules and directives to handle it. Nevertheless, even when rules exist, workers and supervisors may be unaware of them or lack enough training on policy requirements (Agbaje et al., 2021). Therefore, gender-disaggregated data collection and strict monitoring of these regulations may be conducted to guarantee that these concerns are addressed. Facilitating mechanisms such as the gender desk and GAD advocates may be reinforced.

Conclusions
This study found that the gaps and needs of the respondents as customers of the institution need to be met. Graduate students have less access to GAD-related laws and requirements, so a policy framework can be made to make sure that the policies identified are put into place. It is hard to keep going with the GAD campaign, but using the data as a guide to figure out what they need to help a lot in making sure that programs, projects, and activities are in role and resource allocations. The research focuses primarily on gender differences in access to and control over resources, as well as their uneven impact on the lives of men and women. In an endeavor to alleviate poverty, gender analysis facilitates the development of genderresponsive policies, programs, and initiatives that fulfill the specific needs of poor men and women. The College may thus develop the following policies to improve the client-focused GAD agenda for the subsequent years: 1. GAD policy mapping to identify GAD Agenda for professionals in the province of Masbate. It was found out from this study that there are still laws that professionals are not aware of and still requesting for a deeper and wide dissemination of GAD laws. Gender roles must be analyzed deeper along male and female professional clienteles since there are roles that need to be considered on implementing GAD programs and activities in the Graduate School. Some roles and laws can also be integrated in the curriculum.
2. On implementing activities for the professional clienteles, economic empowerment, social development rights and protection, access to security, justice and peace, environmental climate change, gender responsive governance must be deliberated by the implementers to cater the issues in these areas.
3. Review on Magna Carta of Women or 9710 must be done occasionally and in some Gender and Development activities. Further, since the professional clienteles were of child-bearing age, a lactating or breastfeeding rooms during class hours or sessions can be provided to help and encourage young mothers to still pursue professional advancement. It's also a good idea to have a gender policy in place to guarantee that women's concerns are taken into account equally. Gender mainstreaming becomes a component of the institutional culture and practice change process in this way.

4.
A collection of SDD must be done across sectors in the province of Masbate e.g.
agriculture, political, business, informal sectors and others that can be identified to continue strengthening the client-focused programs, activities and projects of the College's Gender and Development. Oral histories on the roles of men and women in the different sectors in Masbate can be made to preserve the culture, traditions and beliefs that Masbatenos.