Why integrating gender equality concerns into employment promotion?
Despite some progress made over the last few decades in increasing women’s labour force participation and narrowing gender gaps in wages, gender equality in the world of work still remains an elusive goal. While millions of women have become successful entrepreneurs, women are still grossly underrepresented in the world’s board rooms. In particular, in the developing world, women continue to form a large majority of the world’s working poor, earn less income, and are more often affected by long-term unemployment than men. This is due to women’s socio-economic disadvantages caused by gender-based discrimination and their double roles of being a worker and a care taker for the society. Women often have less access to productive resources, education, and skills development and labour market opportunities than men in many societies. Largely, this is because of persistent social norms ascribing gender roles, which are often, slow to change. Furthermore, women continue to undertake most of u
