what are the reason for women getting lower income and what are the types of job they take up
Answers
Explanation:
In every country in the world, women continue to be paid less for comparable work than men, says the ILO, and the wage gap narrowed only slightly over the past decade. By the year 2000, women will make up at least one-half of the work force in most countries, as opposed to one-third in 1990. The massive entry of women into active economic life has only rarely been matched by a corresponding improvement in their living or working conditions, says the International Labour Organisation. Inequality of treatment marks virtually all aspects of women's working lives, beginning with wages and employment opportunities and extending to access to decision-making and managerial positions.
"Women's progress in the workforce over the past 10 years has not meant greater access to quality jobs, nor has it brought an end to discrimination", says Mary Chinery-Hesse, ILO Deputy Director-General and leader of the ILO delegation to the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, September 4-15). "Despite gains in some areas, women earn an average of just two-thirds of men's wages, and they are often denied access to opportunities leading to the best jobs."
In addition, while more women work outside the home, a greater percentage of women than ever before act as the sole breadwinners for their families, contributing to the feminization of poverty. "This cycle of poverty cannot be broken until women receive fair wages," says Ms. Chinery-Hesse.
Depending on the country, says the ILO, women earn between 50% and 96% of men's wages (see table). Other trends illustrate the persistence of the obstacles faced by women in the workplace:
Women's employment is primarily concentrated in a narrow range of sectors (especially services, where access to jobs is easier but wages are often lower and job security minimal). Even within those sectors, women find themselves clustered at the lower echelons.
Women make up a greater percentage of workers in "informal" and other precarious forms of employment, which tend to lie outside the purview of labour regulations and inspection, and are therefore more prone to exploitation. In the industrialised countries, between 65 and 90% of all part-time workers are women.
Women compose 90% of the part-time labour force in Germany and Belgium, 65% in Italy, Greece and the United States, and 63% in the Netherlands.
A very high percentage of women in developing countries work in the informal sector. These jobs do not provide the benefits of full-time work in the formal sector including steady wages, adequate occupational health and safety conditions, job security and social protection. In the absence of policy measures to improve earning and employment opportunities for women, there is little evidence that the situation will improve soon.
The main reason that women hold part-time jobs: they cannot find full-time jobs. Child care and work in the home are the other main factors.
Part-time or full-time, women's jobs are often the least secure. "Women still tend to be the last to be hired and the first to be fired," says Ms. Chinery-Hesse.
Men dominate the highest corporate and institutional positions everywhere in the world. The ILO estimates that, at the present rate of progress world-wide, it would take 475 years for parity to be achieved between men and women in top level managerial and administrative positions.
Despite the many obstacles they face, most women need and want to work. An ILO survey of women in the Czech Republic revealed that only 28% of married women said they would stay at home if their husbands made enough money for them to do so, only 20% of Bulgarian women would, and just 10% of German women wanted to stay at home.
Statistics fail entirely to reflect the amount of work women perform for no wages at all. World-wide, women work much longer hours than men when work at home is added. "The work many societies expect women to do without compensation amounts to an extra tax on women,
In every country in the world, women continue to be paid less for comparable work than men, says the ILO, and the wage gap narrowed only slightly over the past decade. By the year 2000, women will make up at least one-half of the work force in most countries, as opposed to one-third in 1990. The massive entry of women into active economic life has only rarely been matched by a corresponding improvement in their living or working conditions, says the International Labour Organisation. Inequality of treatment marks virtually all aspects of women's working lives, beginning with wages and employment opportunities and extending to access to decision-making and managerial positions.
"Women's progress in the workforce over the past 10 years has not meant greater access to quality jobs, nor has it brought an end to discrimination", says Mary Chinery-Hesse, ILO Deputy Director-General and leader of the ILO delegation to the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, September 4-15). "Despite gains in some areas, women earn an average of just two-thirds of men's wages, and they are often denied access to opportunities leading to the best jobs."
In addition, while more women work outside the home, a greater percentage of women than ever before act as the sole breadwinners for their families, contributing to the feminization of poverty. "This cycle of poverty cannot be broken until women receive fair wages," says Ms. Chinery-Hesse.
Depending on the country, says the ILO, women earn between 50% and 96% of men's wages (see table). Other trends illustrate the persistence of the obstacles faced by women in the workplace:
Women's employment is primarily concentrated in a narrow range of sectors (especially services, where access to jobs is easier but wages are often lower and job security minimal). Even within those sectors, women find themselves clustered at the lower echelons.
Women make up a greater percentage of workers in "informal" and other precarious forms of employment, which tend to lie outside the purview of labour regulations and inspection, and are therefore more prone to exploitation. In the industrialised countries, between 65 and 90% of all part-time workers are women.
Women compose 90% of the part-time labour force in Germany and Belgium, 65% in Italy, Greece and the United States, and 63% in the Netherlands.
A very high percentage of women in developing countries work in the informal sector. These jobs do not provide the benefits of full-time work in the formal sector including steady wages, adequate occupational health and safety conditions, job security and social protection. In the absence of policy measures to improve earning and employment opportunities for women, there is little evidence that the situation will improve soon.
The main reason that women hold part-time jobs: they cannot find full-time jobs. Child care and work in the home are the other main factors.
Part-time or full-time, women's jobs are often the least secure. "Women still tend to be the last to be hired and the first to be fired," says Ms. Chinery-Hesse.
Men dominate the highest corporate and institutional positions everywhere in the world. The ILO estimates that, at the present rate of progress world-wide, it would take 475 years for parity to be achieved between men and women in top level managerial and administrative positions.
Despite the many obstacles they face, most women need and want to work. An ILO survey of women in the Czech Republic revealed that only 28% of married women said they would stay at home if their husbands made enough money for them to do so, only 20% of Bulgarian women would, and just 10% of German women wanted to stay at home.
Statistics fail entirely to reflect the amount of work women perform for no wages at all. World-wide, women work much longer hours than men when work at home is added. "The work many societies expect women to do without compensation amounts to an extra tax on women,"