A/HRC/26/39 47. There is a related problem of segregation in the formal labour market, with women clustered in “pink collar”, largely service sector, jobs with inferior working conditions, less job security and lower pay. In high-income countries, more than 85 per cent of employed women work in the service sector, primarily in education and health. In order to address wage gaps resulting from occupational segregation, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and ILO Conventions require equal pay for equal work or for work of equal value, comparable in skill, responsibility, effort and working conditions. The ILO guide to gender-neutral job evaluation9 provides an objective evaluation system. The ILO also recommends that policies to combat occupational segregation also encourage men to enter occupations traditionally associated with women. Informal work 48. Women are concentrated in higher numbers than men in informal work, not recognized, recorded, protected or regulated by the public authorities, and overrepresented in precarious, atypical and vulnerable work or employment. There are extreme examples in which 93 per cent of women workers are in informal work. 49. The informal sector includes casual and seasonal workers, part-time workers, temporary and agency workers, home workers, domestic workers, unpaid family workers and also some forms of self-employment, such as street hawkers. Informal employment is growing in both developing and developed countries: the workforce is becoming increasingly “flexibilized” as employers attempt to avoid regulation and cut labour costs. 50. Women in the informal economy have, furthermore, been deeply affected by economic crisis. There is an “added worker” effect, whereby women enter the labour force to provide additional income security to the household, often forcing them into precarious work, migrant labour overseas or exposing them to trafficking. According to Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing, nearly 40 per cent of street vendors interviewed in developing countries in 2009 had experienced an overall deterioration of employment and income levels, and 84 per cent of own-account home-based workers reported reduced monthly incomes. Domestic and migrant workers 51. Domestic workers caring for children, the disabled and ageing people, are a highly vulnerable category of employees, often in the informal sector. About 83 per cent are women or girls, and many are migrant workers. Domestic workers often encounter deplorable working conditions; labour exploitation; extortionate recruitment fees resulting in debt; confiscation of passports; long, unregulated hours of work; lack of privacy; exposure to physical and sexual abuse; and separation from their own families and children. The ILO Domestic Workers Convention (No. 189) calls for States to guarantee decent work for domestic workers, and thus several countries have introduced new protections. 52. Women migrant workers face exploitation and abuse, often finding themselves in precarious employment without effective legal protections, particularly if they have irregular or undocumented legal status. About half of the world’s migrant workers are women, most of them finding work in traditionally female-dominated occupations such as domestic work or in the garment and textile industries. General Recommendation No. 26 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, on women migrant workers, emphasizes that all categories of women migrants must be protected against 9 ILO, Promoting Equity: Gender-neutral Job Evaluation for Equal Pay: a Step-by-Step Guide (Geneva, 2008). 11

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