affected by the economic situation and restructuring processes, which have
changed the nature of employment and, in some cases, have led to a loss of jobs,
even for professional and skilled women. In addition, many women have entered
the informal sector owing to the lack of other opportunities. Women’s
participation and gender concerns are still largely absent from and should be
integrated in the policy formulation process of the multilateral institutions
that define the terms and, in cooperation with Governments, set the goals of
structural adjustment programmes, loans and grants.
152. Discrimination in education and training, hiring and remuneration,
promotion and horizontal mobility practices, as well as inflexible working
conditions, lack of access to productive resources and inadequate sharing of
family responsibilities, combined with a lack of or insufficient services such
as child care, continue to restrict employment, economic, professional and other
opportunities and mobility for women and make their involvement stressful.
Moreover, attitudinal obstacles inhibit women’s participation in developing
economic policy and in some regions restrict the access of women and girls to
education and training for economic management.
153. Women’s share in the labour force continues to rise and almost everywhere
women are working more outside the household, although there has not been a
parallel lightening of responsibility for unremunerated work in the household
and community. Women’s income is becoming increasingly necessary to households
of all types. In some regions, there has been a growth in women’s
entrepreneurship and other self-reliant activities, particularly in the informal
sector. In many countries, women are the majority of workers in non-standard
work, such as temporary, casual, multiple part-time, contract and home-based
employment.
154. Women migrant workers, including domestic workers, contribute to the
economy of the sending country through their remittances and also to the economy
of the receiving country through their participation in the labour force.
However, in many receiving countries, migrant women experience higher levels of
unemployment compared with both non-migrant workers and male migrant workers.
155. Insufficient attention to gender analysis has meant that women’s
contributions and concerns remain too often ignored in economic structures, such
as financial markets and institutions, labour markets, economics as an academic
discipline, economic and social infrastructure, taxation and social security
systems, as well as in families and households. As a result, many policies and
programmes may continue to contribute to inequalities between women and men.
Where progress has been made in integrating gender perspectives, programme and
policy effectiveness has also been enhanced.
156. Although many women have advanced in economic structures, for the majority
of women, particularly those who face additional barriers, continuing obstacles
have hindered their ability to achieve economic autonomy and to ensure
sustainable livelihoods for themselves and their dependants. Women are active
in a variety of economic areas, which they often combine, ranging from wage
labour and subsistence farming and fishing to the informal sector. However,
legal and customary barriers to ownership of or access to land, natural
resources, capital, credit, technology and other means of production, as well as
wage differentials, contribute to impeding the economic progress of women.
Women contribute to development not only through remunerated work but also
through a great deal of unremunerated work. On the one hand, women participate
in the production of goods and services for the market and household
consumption, in agriculture, food production or family enterprises. Though
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