Women's Issue

Beauty and the Beast: The Exploration of Society's Inferiority toward Women

Women are entering the global labor force in record numbers but they still face higher unemployment rates and lower wages, and success in crashing through the "glass ceiling" to top managerial jobs remains slow, uneven and sometimes discouraging .

Women represent more than half of the world's working poor. A separate updated analysis deals with trends in the efforts of women to break through the symbolic glass-ceiling barrier. Women must have an equal chance of reaching the top of the jobs ladder.

Unless progress is made in taking women out of poverty by

creating productive and decent employment, halving poverty will remain out of reach in most parts of the world. In short, true

equality in the world of work is still out of reach.

While the gap in numbers has been closing in all regions since 1993, the rate has varied widely. In the transition economies and East Asia, the number of women working for pay per 100 men is 91 and 83, respectively, but in other regions such as the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, only 40 women per 100 men are economically active (Somavia 1985).

Of the world's 550 million working poor, those unable to lift themselves and their families above the $1 per day threshold, 330 million, or 60 per cent, are women, the report says. Adding the 77.8 million women who are unemployed means that at least 400 million decent jobs would be needed to provide poor women with a way out of poverty (Somavia 1985).

As for job quality, the overall employment situation for women has not evolved significantly since 2001,