Gender Statistics in the Labour Market

1
Gender Statistics in the Labour Market

• Angela Me
• UNECE Statistics Division

2
Economic life
Work Segregation Wages Accessibility Quality
Income Poverty
3
Segregation
4
Activity rate
Unemployment Rate
5
Employment Rate
6
Employment Indicators

• Activity Rate
• Labour Force/Total Working Age Population
• Employment Rate
• Total Employed/Total Working Age Population
• Unemployment Rate
• Total Unemployed/Labour Force

7
Labour Force Surveys, Census, Surveys
Enterprise surveys, LFS, Census
LFS, Census, Registers
8
Unemployment
LFS
Registered
9
Employment

• Formally there is a clear distinction between
  employed and non employed population
• ILO definition a person is currently employed if
  he/she has worked at least one hour the week
  previous the survey
• Work for income (cash or kind) or unpaid
  production of goods

10
BUT measurement challenges
Formal employment Easier to measure because close
to the people idea of work
Informal employment Difficult to
measure Important because it identifies the
quality of work
Often informal employment is not measured need
for special module in surveys
11
What is Informal Employment?

• Persons in informal employment are those who work
  in the informal sector or in formal units with no
  formal benefits
• Informal employment is broader than employment
  in informal sector
• Informal sector units are household units with
  low level of organization, small scale
  operations, casual labour relations, and where
  business and household accounting can not be
  distinguished

12
Paid/Unpaid work

• Unpaid work
• Production of goods
• Production of services (child care, preparation
  of meals, )
• Source
• Time-use surveys

13
Paid/Unpaid work

• Why is the measurement of informal sector and
  unpaid work a gender issue?
• Because they contribute to have a better
  understanding of women work

14
Occupational segregation
15
Segregation

• Horizontal Segregation
• There is no hierarchical order in the different
  categories
• Vertical Segregation
• There is a hierarchical order (salary, power,
  prestige, )

Inequality
16
Measurement of Segregation
Occupation Female Male
Legislators, senior official and managers 25,400 39,000
Professionals 92,300 54,600
Clerks 21,400 3,900
Plant and machine operators and assemblers 5,600 93,000
17
Measurement of Segregation
Occupation Distribution of Female Distribution of Male
Legislators, senior official and managers 17.5 20.5
Professionals 63.8 28.6
Clerks 14.8 2
Plant and machine operators and assemblers 3.9 48.9
18
Measurement of Segregation
Occupation Sex distribution female Sex distribution male
Legislators, senior official and managers 39.4 60.6
Professionals 62.8 37.2
Clerks 84.6 15.4
Plant and machine operators and assemblers 5.7 94.3
19
Measurement of Segregation
There is inequality the smallest share of women
is in the higher professional categories
20
Employment by status of employment

• Employees
• Employers
• Own-account workers
• Members of producing
• cooperatives
• Unpaid family workers

Self-employed
21
Employment Data availability
Source Availability Data collection
By Occupation NSO Small categories need large sample (census) LFS, Census,
By Industry NSO Enterprise surveys may be incomplete/small categories need large samples LFS, Census, Enterprise surveys
By status NSO LFS, Census
22
Gender Wage gap

• Men average salary - women average salary
• Men salary
• Does it measure discrimination?

23
Gender Wage gap
24
Gender Wage gap

• It simply measures different earnings between
  women and men without saying the causes
• Need to disaggregate wage gap by
• Occupation
• Full/part time

25
Gender Wage gap

• Average wages can be calculated
• Hourly
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Annually
• The average Hourly wage is the best measure since
  it overcomes the bias due to part-time and
  full-time jobs

26
Gender Wage gap

• Sources
• Enterprise surveys
• LFS
• Better source for disaggregated data

27
Accessibility to labour market

• Employment by family composition (number of
  children)

Need to include a module on family care in LFS