Fewer than 6 percent of senior management positions worldwide are held by women
•Commentary
About the data
Definitions
Data sources
Labor force participation rates show how many women are in the labor force but do not show what work they do. Differences between women and men in where they work and what they do are as important as differences in their participation rates.
According to a recent International Labour Organisation (ILO) report, women's activities in developing countries remain highly concentrated in low-wage, low-productivity, and precarious forms of employment that tend to be outside the purview of labor regulations and therefore more prone to exploitation (Lim 1996). A high percentage of women work in the informal sector or in agriculture, where wages are generally among the lowest.
Women remain concentrated in certain occupations in all regions, whatever the level of development. In the industrial sector women tend to be concentrated in a limited number of manufacturing jobs-such as in the garment industry, where more than two-thirds of the global workforce is female and which accounts for more than one-fifth of the female labor force in manufacturing.
Most women in manufacturing are categorized as laborers, operators, and clerical workers. According to the ILO report, most women outside the agricultural sector earn on average about three-fourths of the male wage for the same work in both industrial and developing countries, and the gap is not narrowing.
In all regions, according to the ILO report, women work longer hours for lower wages than their male counterparts. In industrial countries women work at least two hours more a week than men, and differences of 5-10 hours are not unusual. The same pattern prevails in the home. In developing countries women spend 31-42 hours a week in unpaid work in the home, while men spend 5-15 hours in unpaid work.
Data on employment are drawn from the same sources as the labor force data in table 2.3 and are subject to the same caveats for quality and international comparability.
The ILO defines employment categories using the International Classification of Status in Employment (ICSE). Until 1993 the main ICSE groups were employers, own-account workers, employees, members of producers cooperatives, and unpaid family workers. In 1993 the group own-account workers was expanded to include people working in a family enterprise with the same degree of commitment as the head of the enterprise. These people, usually women, were formerly considered unpaid family workers.
According to the ILO, "experience has shown that because of the way countries measure 'status in employment,' the content of the groups is not easily comparable across countries" (Yearbook of Labour Statistics 1995, p. 4). Managers and directors of incorporated enterprises are classified as employees in most countries, but in some they are classified as employers. Similarly, family members who regularly receive remuneration in the form of wages, salaries, commissions, piece rates, or pay in kind are classified as employees in most countries, but some countries classify them as unpaid family workers.
In many instances the type of information needed to classify workers is not collected in labor force surveys. Some countries are unable to measure the employment status of unpaid family workers. And many cannot distinguish between own-account workers and employers in their basic observations, so only the sum of those two groups can be presented.
Differences between countries in the treatment of unemployed people are particularly pronounced. In general, unemployed people with previous job experience are included with employees and classified according to their last job. In some countries, however, they and unemployed people seeking their first job form much of the group persons not classifiable by status, and are not included in the table. The concept of unemployment is also poorly defined for the self-employed, the largest category of employment in many developing countries.
Definitions
The ICSE classifies workers with respect to the type of explicit or implicit contract of employment they have with other people or organizations. The basic criteria for defining classification groups are type of economic risk and type of authority over establishments and other workers that the job incumbent has or will have.
• Employers operate, alone or with one or more partners, their own economic enterprise, or engage independently in a profession or trade, and hire one or more employees on a continuous basis. The definition of "on a continuous basis" is determined by national circumstances. Partners may or may not be members of the same family or household.
• Own-account workers operate, alone or with one or more partners, their own economic enterprise, or engage independently in a profession or trade, and hire no employees on a continuous basis. As with employers, partners may or may not be members of the same family or household.
• Employees are people who work for a public or private employer and receive remuneration in wages, salary, commission, tips, piece rates, or pay in kind.
• Unpaid family workers (also referred to as contributing family workers) work without pay in an economic enterprise operated by a related person living in the same household and cannot be regarded as a partner because their commitment in terms of working time or other factors is not at a level comparable to that of the head of the establishment. In countries where it is customary for young people to work without pay in an enterprise operated by a related person, the requirement of living in the same household is often eliminated.
The above categories should add up to 100 percent. Where they do not, the difference was not classifiable by status (see About the data for composition and treatment).
Employment data are compiled by the World Bank's International Economics Department using an ILO database corresponding to table 2a in the ILO's Yearbook of Labour Statistics.