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Although women work more, they still account for an overwhelming majority (70%) of the over 1 billion people living in poverty. And women suffer higher rates of underemployment and unemployment than men.
According to the report's author, ILO economist Ms. Lin Lim, "The bottom line is that while more and more women are working, the great majority of them are simply swelling the ranks of the working poor." She argues that while there has been some progress, notably in industrialized countries, "women's economic activities remain highly concentrated in low-wage, low-productivity and precarious forms of employment, with men dominating the highest-paying occupations and women the lowest, earning only 50-80% of what men earn".
In a Preface to the report, Michel Hansenne, Director-General of the ILO, highlights the growing economic contribution of women to the global economy: "Their relatively cheap labour has represented the cornerstone of export-oriented industrialization and international competitiveness for many developing countries, while their willingness to give up home and family to become migrant workers has greatly increased some countries' foreign exchange earnings." None the less, writes Hansenne, "equality of opportunity and treatment for women in employment has yet to be achieved anywhere in the world".
The report, issued as an ILO follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and the World Summit for Social Development, highlights the growing economic significance of women's employment and suggests policies for ensuring better terms and conditions of work for them.
The ILO notes that over 45% of all the world's women (aged 15 to 64) are now economically active. In industrialized countries, well over half of all women work, compared to roughly 37% of Western European women and 30% of US women just two decades ago. In Eastern Europe female participation has been traditionally high, over 50%, and has remained so despite the economic transition underway. In south-east Asia the percentage of working women climbed to 54% from 49% and in the Caribbean to 49% from 38%. In south Asia, 44% of women work, compared to only 25% two decades ago.
Even in regions where female participation in the workforce is comparatively low, the percentage increases have been great: in Latin America it went from 22 to 34% and in northern Africa from 8 to 21%. In regional terms, only the Gulf States continue to resist the trend toward increased female employment; however, the number of female migrant workers to these countries is increasing steadily.
Discrimination starts early
The report highlights discrimination in education as one of the main causes of female poverty and underemployment, with women accounting for more than two-thirds of the nearly 1 billion adult illiterates. In some developing countries, such as Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, and Togo in Africa, and Afghanistan and Nepal in Asia, more than 90% of women aged 25 and up have never been to school. Of the approximately 100 million children in the world without any access to primary education, 60% are girls.
Even where education and vocational training are available, many institutions "continue to offer stereotyped 'feminine' skills for girls", such as typing, nursing, sewing, catering and waitressing, as opposed to scientific or technical knowledge. In poorer countries, girls are much more likely than boys to interrupt or halt their schooling in order to tend to domestic tasks, in spite of the obvious benefits of increased education for girls. Says Lin Lim, "each additional year of schooling has been shown to raise a woman's earnings by about 15%, compared with 11% for a man, to reduce fertility rates by 5-10% and to avert 43 infant deaths per 1,000 educated girls".
Gender discrimination, the report says, extends from education to the workplace. Among the most glaring forms of discrimination in job markets are: "unequal hiring and promotion standards, unequal access to training and retraining, unequal access to credit and other productive resources, unequal pay for equal work, occupational segregation and unequal participation in economic decision making".
A striking example of the concentration of women in low-paying sectors is found in the garment-producing industry, where more than two-thirds of the entire global workforce is female and which absorbs almost one-fifth of the female labour force in manufacturing.
Even in better-paid sectors, women work at the lower end of the pay scale. Overall, nearly two-thirds of women employed in manufacturing are categorized as "labourers, operators and production workers; only 5% are in professional and technical occupations, and 2% in administrative and managerial positions".
In the services sector, where most women work, they continue to be clustered at or near the bottom rungs of the employment ladder and pay scales, holding "only 14% of administrative and management jobs and less than 6% of senior management jobs". In the OECD countries, women make up between 65 and 90% of all part-time workers.
More work for less pay: feminine jobs
Occupational segregation on the basis of gender remains high for all regions of the world, irrespective of development levels. The report cites data for some 500 non-agricultural occupations in the United States, the United Kingdom and France showing that approximately 45% of the labour force is organized around gender-dominated occupations in which either women or men make up at least 80% of the workforce. In Japan, women make up 95% of the workforce in such occupations as day care, hospital attendants and nurses, kindergarten teachers, housekeepers, maids and entertainers.
"Not only do men and women have different occupations," says Lin Lim, "men commonly do work of higher pay and status; for example most school administrators and doctors are men whereas most teachers and nurses are women."
In east and south-east Asia, women provide up to 80% of the workforce in export processing zones. In Latin America and the Caribbean, 71% of all female workers are concentrated in the service sector, but the number of unrecorded female workers in manufacturing is thought to be high. In Asia and Africa, most women workers (more than 80% in sub-Saharan Africa) are found in the agricultural sector - where wages are generally among the lowest - and more than one-third of women in non-agricultural activities are in the informal sector. In spite of women's preponderance in agriculture, it is estimated that only 5% of rural credit from multilateral banks ever reaches them.
Women predominate in informal sector work, usually because it is the only employment they can find and where incomes are often at poverty levels. In the Dominican Republic, for example, 70% of women in the informal sector earn incomes below the poverty level.
In all regions of the world, the report notes, females work longer hours for lower wages than their male counterparts. In developed countries, women work at least two hours more per week than men, though five to 10 hours more per week is not unusual. In Australia, Canada and Germany, the hourly work burdens of men and women are roughly equal, but in Italy women work 28% more than men, in Austria 12% more and in France 11%. In Japan, the time women spend on unpaid work is nine times greater than that of men.
In developing countries women spend between 31 and 42 hours per week in unpaid activities, versus five to 15 hours for men. In Kenya women spend 10 times more on domestic tasks than men. In India, women and girls spend at least 20 hours more per week on domestic work. Family responsibilities, the report notes, nearly always weigh more heavily on women than on men, "even for the relatively small numbers of women whose education and skills qualify them for higher-level jobs".
Last hired, first fired
In addition to being the last hired, women are also among the first fired. The report finds that "women's unemployment rates tend to be higher than those of men". In developed regions of the world, officially reported unemployment rates among women for recent years are anywhere from 50 to 100% higher than for men, although in absolute terms more men are openly unemployed (because of their higher labour-force participation rates).
In developing regions, where underemployment is the greater problem, available data on open unemployment show considerably higher female than male rates in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia. The report also cites evidence, including in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe, that "discrimination against women tends to increase as unemployment levels go up", with the rationale being that men need jobs more than women: the result is that "women, and especially older women, predominate among the long-term unemployed".
Improving jobs and working conditions for women
The ILO argues that "increasing employment opportunities for women is not sufficient; there must be action to improve the terms and conditions of such employment". Steps to enhance the quality of employment for women need to take account of the following issues, all of which are covered by international labour standards:
* Enforcing the principle of "comparable worth by providing equal pay for work of equal value". This is necessary in order to eliminate male-female wage differences within industries and to reduce the large differences between "female" jobs and "male" jobs in the highly gender-segregated world of work.
* Improving occupational safety and health for women workers, in order to alleviate and eliminate environmental and workplace hazards, especially those affecting pregnant and lactating women, as well as measures to reduce occupational stress from, among other factors, "long hours, monotonous assembly line tasks and sexual harassment".
* Measures to reduce labour market vulnerability, especially to improve security in informal or atypical forms of work. Women often have to resort to non-standard employment, involving, for example, part-time or homework, due to the need to combine work and domestic responsibilities. The risk is that such forms of employment are often precarious and not covered by the legal and social security systems applying to standard employment.
* Guaranteeing freedom of association and the right to organize and bargain collectively; for women in the formal sector, collective action, particularly through trade unions, is crucial and collective bargaining needs to take greater account of feminine issues. For women in non-formal, atypical or rural employment, grassroots mobilization and organization is an important form of empowerment.
* Appropriate labour market regulation, which would take account of women's need for flexibility, special protective measures in such areas as maternity protection and child care, and steps toward eliminating pervasive inequality in opportunities and treatment between men and women workers.
Providing more and better jobs for women will also involve a conducive macro-economic environment, including accurate and realistic data, in order to develop coherent and effective gender-sensitive policies. Policies need to consider the legal framework, enforcement mechanisms, cultural attitudes and public awareness.
Full-time, secure and stable, formal sector employment
The author of the report, Lin Lim, says that measures to improve women's employment, including education and training programmes, labour legislation covering working conditions, social security arrangements and collective representation and bargaining, have been based on the idea that women would be in full-time, secure and stable, formal sector employment. Taxation and social welfare systems have been built on the image of the man as the breadwinner and the woman as the dependent or secondary earner. "That image no longer applies and procedures need to be reviewed in order to accommodate the reality of today and to ensure that new or non-standard forms of employment for women are not sub-standard in terms of human rights, working conditions, social security and career prospects."
More and better jobs for women - An Action Guide. An ILO follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and The World Summit for Social Development by Lin Lean Lim. ISBN 92-2-109459-6. ILO, Geneva, 1996.
* In 1994, approximately 45% of the world's women between the ages of 15 and 64 were economically active.
* In the OECD countries, the number of women in the labour force grew by more than twice the rate for men between 1980 and 1990. Within the European Union, women accounted for 7 million out of the 8 million newly employed.
* In Central and Eastern Europe, both male and female activity rates fell in comparison to their pre-reform levels. However, only in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria did female participation rates decline more than those of men.
* In east and south-east Asia, women provide up to 80% of the workforce in export processing zones.
* In international labour migration, the ratio of females to males is 12:1 among Filipinos migrating to Asian destinations, 3:1 among Indonesians and 3:2 among Sri Lankans.
* In developed countries, women work at least two hours per week more than men and often five-10 hours per week more. In developing countries, women spend 31-42 hours in unpaid work, while men spend between five and 15 hours in such work.
* In Latin America and the Caribbean, 71% of economically active women are concentrated in the service sector. In developed countries, the figure is about 60%. The concentration of the female labour force in the agricultural sector is more than 80% in sub-Saharan Africa and at least 50% in Asia.
* Everywhere, women are paid less than men, and there is no indication that this will change soon. The majority of women continue to earn on average about three-fourths of the male wage outside of the agricultural sector.
* Women hold 14% of administrative and management jobs and less than 6% of senior management jobs in the world.
* In industrialized countries, much of the growth in women's labour force participation has been in part-time jobs. Women make up between 65% and 90% of all part-timers in OECD countries.
* In Africa, more than a third of women outside of the agricultural sector work in the informal sector. The figure is 72% in Zambia and 62% in the Gambia. It is 41% in the Republic of Korea, 65 % in Indonesia and over 80% in Lima, Peru.
* In about two-thirds of the countries in developed regions, unemployment rates among women are higher than among men; about 50-100% greater, in general. In Eastern and Central Europe, unemployment rates are higher for women except in Hungary, Lithuania and Slovenia.
* Women make up nearly 70% of the world's poor and more than 65% of the illiterate.
* Only 5% of multilateral banks' rural credit reaches women.