In the mountain village of Kalaw, Myanmar, women in bamboo hats are busy laying the foundations of a road. They woke at dawn, ate mohinga fish soup for breakfast and then joined other female colleagues in the boiling sun. Surrounded by red soil and gravel, the five-month baby of 21-year-old Cho Mi Ko is also on the roadside. He is sleeping under a makeshift shelter, oblivious to his mother’s hard labour.

The sight of women building roads is common in Myanmar. From the rural areas of Rakhine state to touristic Bagan, fuming tarmac and piles of debris are mostly handled by female workers, wearing an extra layer of the traditional yellow plant extract tanaka to protect their faces from the sun.

Conservative values and decades of military rule have limited women’s voices, but contradictions abound when it comes to gender equality in Myanmar. The building sector exemplifies this. The political transition to democracy is accompanied by a construction boom, with new roads winding through the countryside and buildings springing up in the biggest cities. Women make up a striking portion of the labour force – a position that empowers them, but also exposes them to the risks of a loosely regulated environment.

A family living on a building site in Sanchaung township, Yangon. Photograph: Sara Perria

Even in Yangon, the largest city in a country of 51.5 million people, a building site has signs of an unexpected domestic environment. Some pans, a television and a cradle live among sacks and piles of concrete mix, on the third floor of a block of apartments-in-the-making, in Sanchaung township. “I work here as a carpenter,” says 24-year-old Chaw Su Khaing. She has been living inside the building site for the past eight months with her two children, one aged four and the other just eight months. It was the aftermath of the deadly cyclone Nargis in 2008 that pushed her to leave her home in the Irrawaddy delta region.

“There are no jobs there now. It is hard to cultivate the land,” she says. But she is one of the lucky ones, as her husband works with her on the same building site.

“[These women] come from very poor backgrounds. Some are single mothers, others in rural areas do occasional construction work while their husbands migrated abroad,” says Mar Mar Oo, labour activist for the 88 Generation pro-democracy group.

According to the 2014 census, a quarter of households in Myanmar have no men. Many emigrated to richer countries such as Malaysia or Thailand, while some others might be part of insurgent groups involved in ethnic conflicts, especially in rural border areas. Women help to provide for the family in their husbands’ absence by alternating work in the paddy fields with occasional construction work.

A worker in central Yangon. Photograph: Chiara Luxardo

Ma Aye Than is alone for a different reason: “I am divorced,” says the 43-year-old, lowering her voice and suddenly walking away, the material to build a pavement carried on her head.

In conservative Myanmar, divorce carries a social stigma for women, leaving them with an extra burden when it comes to raising their children. Especially in big cities, single and divorced mothers from the poorest suburbs swell the ranks of road workers. Chau Su lives in a group of plastic tents off a busy road not far from a popular five-star hotel in the north of Yangon, a city of five million. There are no toilets, no running water, no mattresses. Mice and cockroaches abound instead. “I carry the mix,” she explains.

What makes female workers appealing to the industry is very straightforward: they are cheaper. “Women are being exploited,” says Mar Mar Oo. “If a man gets 2,500 kyats [£1.35] a day, a woman would get 2,000.” In the building site where Chaw Su Khaing lives with her husband, she gets paid 4,500 kyats a day; her husband gets 5,000, because his is considered skilled work.

A roadworker near the city of Kyaukme, Shan state. Photograph: Chiara Luxardo

Women are also apparently seen as easier to control, and, even when the workforce are all women, a man will manage them. Yet this is inconsistent with the fact that the most prominent politician in the country is a woman. In November 2015, Myanmar staged its first free elections in 25 years, after decades of military rule, and latterly, a reformist government backed by the military. As a result, the Lady – as Aung San Suu Kyi is often called – is set to run the country, supported overwhelmingly by the popular vote.

The daughter of national independence hero Aung San – from whom she derived her popularity in the first place – will still have to compromise. The military will retain power, with three key ministers and a quarter of the seats in parliament. It is hoped she will be able to improve conditions for women in the country – although expectations from some activists could be described as, at best, lukewarm.

At a press conference before the election, Suu Kyi admitted that the figure of 15% female candidates within her party reflected the difficulty in finding women both fit for the role and willing to do it. Myanmar’s social structure sees women as subservient to men. With more fundamental issues – such as food shortages and health crises – to tackle, gender inequality is unlikely to be a priority for the incoming government, regardless of the sex of its leader. However, May Sabe Phyu, director of the Gender Equality Network, says: “When we are talking about food, shelter and economics, we are not talking about different issues, and having few women at the decision-making level is a key problem. It means that there will be no willingness to make laws that protect labour and services that women need. I don’t see Suu Kyi as wanting to change this perception. She doesn’t think that special measures are needed, but she is ignoring barriers that women face at all levels when coming from less-privileged backgrounds.”

A worker’s temporary house in central Yangon. Photograph: Chiara Luxardo

Cultural barriers regulate women’s lives in Myanmar on issues such as health, birth control or divorce. Stories of women who are not accepted back into their family after a marriage break-up are not unusual, and this makes it easy to find them among those building the country’s roads.

Myanmar, however, is a complex country, and the role of women is sometimes contradictory. According to Nilanjana Sengupta, author of the book The Female Voice of Myanmar, equality historically exists in certain aspects of society here – the law relating to inheritance rights and even marriage and divorce, for example. But “anything permissive and westernised was seen as unsettling”, she says. As a result: “Burmese women don’t wear a burka but, metaphorically, this is what they are doing.”

The problems are often reinforced by a lack of awareness; inequality is so much a part of society that many of the women do not even know that they are being discriminated against, she adds. This is particularly true when it comes to fighting for labour rights in the midst of a still-incomplete democratic transition. Even more in the construction sector because of the nature of the job – contracts are short term or on a daily basis, and there are fewer controls because building sites are not as easily accessible as, for example, garment factories.

Working in central Yangon. Photograph: Chiara Luxardo

Before reforms started in 2011, Myanmar was a pariah state under international sanctions. Unions were not allowed and therefore labour rights are still a relatively new – and unfamiliar – issue. Even before unions began to structure themselves properly, women in the construction industry did try to organise protests, but unsuccessfully. In 2003, a group of females working on a building site in Yangon’s Insein township challenged the order to carry iron bars that were too heavy. As a result, the employer fired three pregnant workers.

“Now we are in 2016, but things are still the same; progress is very very slow,” says Mar Mar Oo. “According to the law, women should be doing lighter jobs during their period and when they are pregnant, and have time off before and after maternity. But this doesn’t happen. Women often are not even aware of their rights.”

A worker carries building material on her head in central Yangon. Photograph: Chiara Luxardo

However, Myanmar’s society is changing fast. The 2014 census shows that girls between the ages of five and 29 now study as much as boys. Between the age of 16 and 19, the percentage of females in education is marginally higher. Women also get married later and have fewer children than the average in south-east Asia.

When it comes to the job market the gender gap becomes striking: eight out of 10 men of working age are employed, against less than half of women. The age curve suggests that women leave the job market as soon as they get married – a choice that could impact heavily on Myanmar’s chances of economic growth.

Not having a job is not an option for Min Min, who came from the outskirts of the city to work on a pavement in Yangon. With a sack of concrete in her hands and a knotted shirt as a hat, she looks much older than her 31 years. “I’ve worked as a carpenter for the past 12 years. I got married two weeks ago, but I will continue to do this job. There is nothing else I can do,” she says.