Trends, Countertrends, and Gaps in Women's Employment

Abstract

The factors driving global integration, namely, trade expansion, technological change, and the internationalization of production have altered production patterns and changed the composition of output in both developed and developing countries. As global patterns and modes of production have changed there has been a general shift away from agriculture toward industry and services. Along with these output changes have come significant changes in regional and national employment. In developing and developed countries, these changes span divergent trends. On the one hand, there is the increased availability of more and better quality employment as workers shift out of agriculture and subsistence production and into waged employment in the expanding manufacturing and service sectors. On the other hand, there have been sectors where the trend has been away from formalization toward the informalization and semi-formalization of production activities and employment practices. Women have generally benefited from improvements in the world economy. This article demonstrates, however, that patterns of employment and income generation among women often diverge, however, from global trends in important ways that suggest that the forces shaping global integration effect women differently. The article frames a policy discussion that the International Center for Research on Women led to debate the implications of recent trends in women's employment in the developing and developed world. The six articles in this section represent this discussion. They span a range of empirical and theoretical inquiry, exploring global employment trends and highlighting changes in women's participation in formal and informal economic activities.