Eva Longoria speaks up to promote gender equality at work
Actor, producer and activist, Eva Longoria, takes part in a joint ILO/Gallup event in Washington DC to celebrate International Women’s Day, 8 March 2017.
A special panel discussion will launch the forthcoming report – Towards a better future for women and work: Voices of women and men – which details the results of a global research project conducted through the Gallup World Poll assessing women’s and men’s attitudes about women and work.
The findings are based on interviews conducted in 2016 with nearly 149,000 adults in 142 countries and territories about their perceptions regarding the working lives of women.
Influential speakers
Guy Ryder ILO Director-General Jim Clifton CEO of Gallup Eva Longoria Actor, producer, director, businesswoman and activist Sheila Lirio Marcelo Founder, Chairperson and CEO of Care.com Sir Angus Deaton Princeton Professor Emeritus and 2015 Nobel laureate
Background
In 2019, the ILO will celebrate its Centenary. Specialized in the world of work, the ILO’s primary goals are to promote rights at work, encourage decent employment opportunities, enhance social protection, and strengthen social dialogue on work-related issues. Gender equality in the world of work is at the heart of this mandate. And women’s full and effective participation in the workforce – and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life – is key.
Against the backdrop of the significant progress women have made in the world of work, there is much yet to accomplish. While women account for half of the world population, they remain underrepresented. Barely half of women worldwide are working in paid jobs, compared with about four in five men. Globally, a gap of more than 26 percentage points separates women and men in labour force participation, but the divides are much wider in certain parts of the world. Further, women continue to carry the lion’s share of family and caregiving responsibilities. While these duties prevent some from joining the labour force, they also leave many women in the labour force struggling to find a balance between unpaid care and paid work.
Going forward, the ILO aims to bring new perspectives that can guide actions to make the world of work a more gender-equitable place. To inform this initiative, the ILO selected Gallup as its partner to obtain sound data on global attitudes and perceptions regarding women and work from both women and men.
