Income and Employment
Improving women’s economic opportunities is key to poverty reduction and economic growth. This is explicitly recognised in the World Bank’s Gender Equality Action Plan for 2007-2010, which states that ‘increased women’s labour force participation and earnings are associated with reduced poverty and faster growth’. SDC has been investing in this field for many years, with positive impacts. For example, women have steadily entered formal employment in unprecedented numbers over recent decades in almost every region of the world, and there have been marked improvements in women’s access to credit.
Yet gender equality with regards to employment and income-generating opportunities has yet to be achieved. For example, the pay gap between men and women remains high in all countries and throughout most sectors, including informal wage employment and self-employment. Women mostly work in informal employment, which is largely unregulated - meaning that their pay and working conditions are often extremely poor. Such work is also insecure, with no compensation for sickness and no maternity leave. Unpaid care responsibilities mean that women still work part-time to a greater degree than men, or find themselves restricted to home-based work which is poorly paid and unregulated. Even at higher levels, women are largely under-represented or excluded from top decision-making and high-salary positions, hitting a ‘glass ceiling’. More than men, they are also subjected to sexual and other forms of violence and harassment in the workplace.
In times of economic crisis, women’s position in the labour market can become even more precarious than men’s. This is because their employment is less secure (being concentrated in the informal economy), and because policies or plans (e.g. fiscal stimulus packages) are mostly directed towards bolstering men’s traditional areas of employment (such as infrastructure) rather than women’s (such as health and education).
In order to come closer to gender equality goals the gender perspective has to be included from the initial stages of analysis to their final impact assessment (including, for example, the composition of their implementation team and a gender responsive monitoring system).
Publications:
FAO / ILO 2009: Power and poverty. Reducing gender inequality by ways of rural development?
ILO 2010: Women in labour markets: Measuring Progress and identifying challenges
Sancar 2010: Gender Responsive Development Cooperation
