WOMEN are increasingly successful at breaking into management and other male dominated areas of the labour market. But most still work longer hours and earn significantly less than men.
These are among the findings of an International Labour Organisation report published today.
Women are twice as likely as men to be made redundant, and twice as likely to experience poverty.
The report, optimistically entitled "More and Better Jobs for Women", was prepared in response to a call from the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing to investigate global trends in female employment.
Inevitably, it focuses on the plight of women in developing countries, where they are entering the labour market in significant numbers for the first time and are suffering the most exploitation.
Forty five per cent of all women aged between 15 and 64 are now economically active. While the fastest growth is in north Africa and south Asia, the highest participation rates are still in industrialised countries, where over 50 per cent of women now work. This compares with 30 to 37 per cent 20 years ago.
In Ireland, which industrialised later than its neighbours, 36.5 per cent of women are in the labour force.
In developing countries, women work between two and 10 hours a week more than men. In east and south east Asia, they comprise 80 per cent of the workforce in the special export production zones, where there is little regulation of pay and working conditions.
"Their relatively cheap labour has represented the cornerstone of export oriented industrialisation and international competitiveness for many developing countries," said the director general of the ILO, Mr Michel Hansenne, yesterday at the launch of the report in Geneva.
On a global scale, women earn about 75 per cent of the average male rate and there are no signs of the gap closing, the report states. Women hold a mere six per cent of senior managerial posts and unemployment rates among them are 50 per cent to 100 per cent higher than among men.
Even in developed countries women tend to work in the least regulated sectors such as those providing part time and casual employment. In the OECD countries, between 65 and 90 per cent of all part time workers are women.
In some developing countries the majority of women work in sectors which are totally unregulated. In Zambia, for instance, 72 per cent of women are in unregulated employment, in Indonesia the figure is 65 per cent and in Korea 41 per cent.
Nevertheless, the ILO singles out discrimination against women in the education system as the greatest cause of inequality, rather than inadequate labour legislation.
In several African countries 90 per cent of women aged over 25 have never been to school, and of 100 million children in the world denied access to primary education, 60 million are girls.
The ILO says the principle of "comparable worth" should be introduced to eliminate differentials.
Welcoming the report, the chief executive of the Employment Equality Agency, Ms Carmel Foley, said that more and more women are entering the Irish labour market. She added: "The persistent gap between women's and men's average earnings is a cause of concern, particularly the picture emerging in manufacturing industry.
In Irish manufacturing industry, women earn about 71 per cent of the average male rate, although across the economy as a whole women earn 80 per cent of male rates.
Ms Foley said that the EEA would be seeking support from unions and employer bodies to implement the European Commission's new code of practice on equal pay for work of equal value.