Feminisation of working poverty continues: ILO

New Delhi, Mar 8 (UNI) Even though number of women in the workforce has increased, the persistent gap in the status, job security, wages and education between women and men is contributing to 'feminisation of working poverty', according to the International Labour Organisation.

This has been highlighted in the ILO's report 'Global Employment trends for Women brief-2007' released worldwide to mark the International Women's Day today.

The number of women participating in labour markets--either in work or looking actively for work has at its highest point, the report said and added that about 1.2 billion of the 2.9 billion workers in the world were women.

However, about 81.8 million women, which was the highest ever were unemployed, struck in low productivity jobs in agriculture and services or received less money for doing the same job as men.

Moreover, the share of working age for women who work or were seeking work had actually stopped growing or declined in some regions, partially due to the growing number of young women engaged in education rather than work, the report said.

It showed that 47.9 per cent women out of the total number of women at work were in the wage and salaried empolyment, which was seven per cent more than what was ten years ago. However, the poorer the region, the more likely that women work as unpaid contributing family members or low income own account workers, in a higher proportion than men.

From being an unpaid contributing family worker or low paid own account become a worker to wage and salaried employee was a major step towards freedom and self determination for many women. However, in the poorest regions of the world the share of female contributing family workers in total employment was still much higher than men, with women less likely to be wage and salaried workers.

In South East Asia, four out of ten working women were classified as contributing family workers compared to two out of ten men.

In South Asia, six out ten working women were classified as contributing family workers but again only two out of ten men had such status. In West Asia and North Africa, the proportions were three out of ten women and one out of ten men, the report pointed out.

In the last Global Employment Trend for Women in 2004, it was estimated that women made up at least 60 per cnet of the world's working poor which means tha they work but did not earn enough to lift themselves and their families above one dollar per person per day.

According to the current ILO study, ''there is no reason to believe that this situation has changed in the recent past or will in the near future.'' More UNI AJ YA DB1034