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Youth Employment in Asia and the Pacific:

Equality at work for young women and men

Key issues and strategies

Nelien Haspels and Busakorn SuriyasarnILO, Bangkok

February 2002

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Equality between women and men or Gender equality, refers to the equal rights, responsibilities, opportunities, treatment and valuation of women and men in employment and in training.

Gender equality is about ensuring that all persons are treated with dignity and allowed to develop to their full potential, leading to a higher quality of life for all. It includes:

• the same human and workers’ rights

• equal value and fair distribution of:• responsibilities and opportunities

• workload and decision making.

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Trends in the labour market

Young and older women form an increasing share of the world’s labour force in Asia and worldwide.

Women who are economically Women’s share in the labour force active (20-54 years) in 2000 in 2000

Region % Africa

58Asia 64Latin America 46 & CaribbeanEurope 69North America 73

Region % Worldwide (ILO 2000) 41 Asia (ILO 2000) 40Thailand (NSO 1998) 45

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shift from agriculture to manufacturing and services

Table 3: Percentage distribution of the labour force, by sex, 1990/1997 in East, Southeast and South Asia

Female labour force Male labour force

Agriculture Industry Services Agriculture Industry Services

East Asia 14 23 63 11 33 56

South-east Asia 46 13 41 45 20 35

South Asia 66 18 15 54 13 32

___________________________________________________________________Source: UN, 2000: Prepared by the Statistics Division of the United Nations Secretariat

from ILO, 1999. Key indicators of the Labour Market (table 4.), Geneva.

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Young women migrants from rural areas predominate:

• in low skill jobs in labour intensive manufacturing industries & EPZs, but: decline of women in jobs when production becomes more skill, capital and technology intensive

• in the service sector in lower skilled jobs:

- shop attendants

- data entry, finance and administration workers

- domestic workers

- entertainment workers

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Increase in low quality jobs for women:

• 3 D jobs: Dirty - Dangerous - Demeaning

- lower quality working and employment conditions

- flexi-jobs: irregular and part-time

- little training or promotion prospects

- no or little job or social security, dismissal upon marriage or pregnancy

- in the informal sector as subcontracted or own account workers

• Gender wage gap: Wide-spread discrimination on basis of sex: Women earn typically 2/3 of men’s earnings

•Only partly due to less education and work experience.

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WHY: direct and indirect discrimination.

Direct gender or sex discrimination: Someone is nothired or not promoted, because of his or her sex, and this is stated openly. For example:

Sales executives wanted: Dispatch drivers needed:Attractive females 18-22 Young able-bodied men years are invited to apply, are invited to apply, enclose photograph and CV. enclose copy of driving

license and CV.

Indirect discrimination: No explicit exclusion of one sex officially, but exclusion of one sex because of preferences or gender stereotypes.

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Gender stereotyping: Common beliefs on suitable work for men and women:

• All women are mothers first, and all girls become mothers.• Men are better in technology and handling machines• Women’s ‘nimble’ fingers and patience qualify them for repetitive low-skilled work in factories• Men are natural leaders and managers • Women are last hired and first fired: If jobs are scarce,

men should be given preference as they are considered to be the main income earners.

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Job Segregation: Men’s - Women’s Jobs:

• Horizontal segregation

= across jobs

women cooks - men guards

• Vertical segregation in job hierarchy:

women workers - men supervisors

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Horizontal segregation:

• women in narrower range of occupations

• horizontal segregation going down: world wide

• lowest in Asia, except China

• more women in men’s jobs, not more men in women’s jobs

• women jobs: less pay, status, career options

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Vertical segregation in job hierarchy:

• Higher in Asia and the Pacific than in other parts of the world

• Old idea: not enough qualified women out of date, but

• Glass ceiling remains intact worldwide:

- <20% women in management position

- 1-5% women in top jobs

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Horizontal and vertical sex segregation in enterprises:

Glass ceiling & walls

Support staff (majority women)

Female graduates

Male graduates

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Equality in practice is good for workers and businesses

• It is the right and the smart thing to do: Social justice and sound economic sense

• Sex is not an indicator of competence

• Equality in recruitment means choosing from the widest

pool of talent

• Benefits to the enterprise: because of diversity of approach,

background and priorities: Balanced mix of ‘feminine’ and

‘masculine’ attributes e.g. competitive, decisive, forceful,

cooperative, consensus - oriented, (too) emotional,

sensitive, ‘people management’

• Good image of companies

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How to promote equality in youth employment

1. Labour market information needs to be disaggregated (broken down) by sex and age.

2. Equal employment policies (EEOP) = Commitment to employment practices and procedures which:

- do not discriminate

- provide equality to all irrespective of age, sex or other grounds to achieve productive and freely chosen employment

3. Practical measures

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Practical measures: step-by-step approach

1. Identification of bottlenecks and opportunities for promotion of equality in

- job recruitment- selection- promotion- transfer or training

2. When recruiting: - advertisements should not indicate a preference for applicants of a

certain group or sex unless the preference is clearly justified

- encourage everybody to apply, select adequate information channels reaching young men and women

- selection criteria, tests and interviews should be related to job competencies and be the same for everybody

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Practical measures: step-by-step approach (continued)

3. At the workplace:

- ensure respect and a healthy working environment free of (sexual) harassment for all workers

- ensure that workplaces are family friendly.

4. Positive action, also known as ‘positive discrimination’ or ‘affirmative action’ = Practical temporary measures to combat the direct and indirect results of past discrimination by favouring training and employment opportunities for the group suffering from past discrimination.

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Examples of practical measures:

Setting a quota or target, for example:

If in a company all supervisors are men, a certain percentage of positions are set aside for women.

Quota is a stronger measure than a target:

• Quota: No men are recruited until the desired number of suitable women staff is on board

• Target: Suitable women will be recruited in addition to suitable men.

Equality in Training

•Education•Vocational Skills Training

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Education – the big pictureProgress

Higher enrolment for girls and women:

- at primary level in almost all countries

- similar enrolment between men and women at tertiary level in industrialized countries

HoweverGender gaps in access to education still remain:

- at primary level in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa & Arab region

- higher enrolment rates for boys and young men in developing countries

- illiteracy among girls & women in low-income countries; higher among adult women

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Education – the big pictureProgress

Worldwide increase in access to education for women and girls provide them with better employment.Women and girls have performed as well as men and boys in all levels of education.

HoweverGender equality in education is insufficient to overcome job segregation and wage disparities.Gender equality in access to education is not matched with equal access to vocational and on-the-job training.Women’s lack of access to quality training = bottleneck to gender equality at work.

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Obstacles in skills trainingLess training in a few skills of low demand:

sex segregation segregation in jobin education & training

Women are trained in limited number of skills considered “suitable” to women.Training is often supply-driven, not based on demands of local job market.Women tend to be trained for self-employment in similar skills and in shorter courses, while men are in formal vocational training with longer duration.

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Once in the job market,Women tend to:

receive only minimal on-the-job trainingbe under-represented in retraining programmeshave extremely limited opportunities for apprenticeship

Because:women often work part-time or for short period of timetraining schemes favour the better educated and better skilled who are usually menworkplace-based training is often under direct responsibility of employers: only few have equal opportunity policies

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Lack of access to retraining,Women who are particularly at risk:

1. Women who spend some time out of the labour market because of pregnancies, child care or other family responsibilities

2. Retrenched women workers who carried out largely unskilled work in industries, which collapsed due to economic transitions or reforms.

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In some countries:Women tend to be excluded from handling equipment, machines and new technologies.

Women are encouraged to enter new fields such as information technology and finance sector.

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Training for self-employment and entrepreneurship

Women are major actors in growth of micro- and small enterprises around the world.Between 1970-1990 gap between men and women as “employers and own account workers” narrowed from 26 to 40 women for every 100 men. However, women predominate in smaller, more precarious, subsistence type of businesses with low returns. Training in self-employment for women is being organized in many countries but suffers from low quality and limited skills, among others.

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Vicious cycle of lack of trainingand low-quality, low-pay work

concentration in low-skilled jobs with no prospects

Lack of education few women in high-tech& training or capital-intensive fields

which provide better training

women seen are primarily family care-takers, hence higher risk for skills investments

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Priorities in training & retraining for girls and women (1)

Adoption of explicit equal opportunity goals and measures in vocational training systems

Meaningful inclusion of both males and females in the full range of standard vocational training programmes, rather than provision of traditionally female-oriented skills to women only.

Progressive revision of all training curricula to avoid gender stereotyping and promote equality between the sexes

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Priorities in training & retraining for girls and women (2)

Encouraging both boys and girls to go into non-traditional occupations to break existing patterns of job segregation, e.g., girls into scientific and technical fields and boys into jobs in the care sector

EFFECTIVE MEASURES INCLUDE: Introduction of technical, science and care subjects

including life skills for boys and girls in the formal educational system from the primary level onwards

Career counseling for school-leavers which discourages gender stereotyping and channels both girls and boys into marketable and productive occupations in new fields

Job placement programmes

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Priorities in training & retraining for girls and women (3)

Establishment of more effective linkages between training systems and labour markets, so that girls and women are trained in employable skills alongside boys and men.

PRACTICAL MEASURES INCLUDE: Combining classroom with workplace-based training Seeking the active involvement of employers in selecting

types of training, in job-search programmes, in job-placement schemes and obtaining their commitment to gender equality in employment

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Priorities in training & retraining for girls and women (4)

Special tailor-made training for potentially vulnerable groups of women, e.g., women prone to migration to urban centers or to foreign countries, ethnic minority women who may lack cultural and language skills – realistic information and basic life skills as protection against exploitation and abuse

Awareness raising among men workers on their role in sharing family responsibilities could be incorporated in many work-place based training programmes.

Training in prevention of sexual harassment and gender-based violence at work in vocational training situations

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Priorities in training & retraining for girls and women (5)

Development of flexible training programmes for young and adult women and men with family responsibilities, who need or seek to combine paid and unpaid work in terms of the design, delivery and location of the training (e.g., child care services)

Integrated training for women who will become self-employed consisting of relevant and productive vocational skills training and enterprise development

Special measures such as targeted information campaigns may need to be designed to facilitate the entry of workers with family responsibilities into labour market-based training and retraining programmes

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION