Indicators for change: Measuring gender equality in employment

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Indicators for changeMeasuring gender equality
in employment

• Pamela Thomas
• Australian National University
• IWDA Symposium on Harmonisation of Gender
  Indicators
• June 16-17, 2006

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Key points

• Indicators, especially those measuring progress
  at international and national levels are often
  blunt tools quantitative
• Local and project level indicators allow for
  richer and more qualitative information, but this
  needs to be linked to national and international
  data bases
• Need to consider the linkages between the MDG
  targets and indicators
• Need to look behind and beyond the data ask
  why? What impact?
• In developing program goals, strategies
  indicators consider the assumptions you make

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MDG Goal 3 Gender Equality and Empowerment of
WomenTarget Eliminate gender disparity in all
levels of education by 2015

• Indicator 11 Share of women in wage employment
  in the non agricultural sector
• Indicator 45 the unemployment rate among young
  people 15-34 years by sex

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Womens share of waged employment in the non
agricultural sector () (Elson Keklik 2002 35
Progress or the Worlds Women)

• Country
• Thailand
• Philippines
• Indonesia
• Fiji
• Pakistan

• 1980s 2000
• 42 47
• 41 49
• 28 37
• 26 31
• 5 8

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When you look behind the data

• Women are less likely than men to hold paid and
  regular jobs and more often work in the informal
  economy which provides little financial
  securityinformal employment is persistent and
  widespread the average earnings are too low to
  raise households out of poverty
• (Chen et al 20057 Progress of the Worlds
  Women)

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Womens and mens share of informal employment
in non agricultural employment (Grown, Gupta
Kes 200591)

• Country
• Thailand
• Philippines
• Indonesia
• India
• Kenya

• Women Men
• 54 49
• 73 71
• 77 78
• 86 83
• 83 59

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Reviewing indicator 11 womens share of non
agricultural wage employment

• Urban focus, middle class bias
• Inconsistent data or little accurate data
  available
• Many women are self employed or in the informal
  sector - in part time, temporary, seasonal,
  insecure jobs
• Does not capture gender gaps in pay and
  conditions
• Many women in poor countries work in the
  agricultural sector
• Does not account for unpaid economic work

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Assumptions

• What are the assumptions behind
• including womens share in wage employment in
  the non-agricultural sector as a measure of
  empowerment?

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Looking behind the indicators

• Why is the proportion of women in wage employment
  increasing in many countries?
• What determines this?
• To what extent does employment benefit/empower
  women?
• What kinds of employment do women have?
• What level of pay in relationship to men?
• What conditions?
• What security?
• What longer term social, economic, health
  impacts?.....

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.looking behind the indicators

• do women and men in non agricultural wage
  employment earn enough to raise them out of
  poverty?
• what are the historical precedents?
• How can we assure decent work for women and
  men?
• how do we account for the work these women do

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Recommended employment indicators for MDG
3(Grown,Gupta Kes 2005127 Chen et al
20054ECLAC 20027ILO 2002)

• the share of women in wage employment and self
  employment by type of employment agricultural,
  non agricultural, formal and informal
• the gender gaps in earnings in wage employment
  and self employment

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Decent work

• How do we support ILOs Decent Work indicators
  to provide more in-depth information and
  understanding of womens and mens economic
  involvement?
• What policies need to be put in place to ensure
  work empowers rather than disempowers?

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• Womens entry into the paid labour force has not
  resulted in the economic security needed to
  improve gender equityso long as the majority of
  women workers are informally employed, gender
  equality will also remain an elusive goal (Chen
  et al 20057).

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• there is a trend among the very poor towards
  gender equality in the workforce neither men
  nor women are paid a liveable wage and
  increasingly both are pawns in the global
  economic order.