Labour market institutions, including collective bargaining, the regulation of employment contracts and social protection policies, are instrumental for improving the well-being of workers, their families and society. In many countries, these instituti

This paper considers various dimensions and sources of gender inequality and presents policies and best practices to address these. With women accounting for fifty percent of the global population, inclusive growth can only be achieved if it promotes gender equality. Despite recent progress, gender gaps remain across all stages of life, including before birth, and negatively impact health, education, and economic outcomes for women. The roadmap to gender equality has to rely on legal framework reforms, policies to promote equal access, and efforts to tackle entrenched social norms. These need to be set in the context of arising new trends such as digitalization, climate change, as well as shocks such as pandemics.

This report analyzes gender equality in the labor market and related policies and legislation in the Philippines, and concludes with recommendations to promote gender equality. Key mechanisms for attaining inclusive growth for women requires expanding employment opportunities and decent work outcomes for women to promote gender equality in labor markets. Economic growth in the Philippines, however, has not translated into sufficient employment growth and the employment growth has not been inclusive for women. Generally speaking, there has been little improvement in gender equality in the labor market, as measured by the share of women in waged employment in the nonagriculture sector. In the Philippines, the estimated proportion of women's annual earnings to men's annual earnings stands at less than 60%. However, employment growth alone is not sufficient to judge whether there is inclusive growth, especially in low-income countries where there is significant underemployment and a large informal employment sector. Gender inequality in the labor market is ascertained here by reference to seven gender gaps (or deficits for women): labor force participation, human capital, the unpaid domestic and care work burden, vulnerable employment, wage employment, decent work, and social protection. Despite a variety of gender-responsive legal and policy initiatives, an assessment of the labor market in the Philippines reveals that although some gender gaps have been reduced, women still suffer from persistent gender deficits.

This paper examines gender inequality in the context of structural transformation and rebalancing in China. We document declining women's relative wages and labor force participation in China during the last two decades, despite rapid growth and expansion of the service sector. Using household data, we provide evidence consistent with a U-shaped relationship between economic development and women's labor market outcomes. Using a model of structural transformation, we show that labor market barriers for women have increased over time. Model counterfactuals suggest that removing these barriers and increasing service sector productivity can boost both gender equality and economic growth in China.

We study whether higher gender equality facilitates economic growth by enabling better allocation of a valuable resource: female labor. By allocating female labor to its more productive use, we hypothesize that reducing gender inequality should disproportionately benefit industries with typically higher female share in their employment relative to other industries. Specifically, we exploit within-country variation across industries to test whether those that typically employ more women grow relatively faster in countries with ex-ante lower gender inequality. The test allows us to identify the causal effect of gender inequality on industry growth in value-added and labor productivity. Our findings show that gender inequality affects real economic outcomes.

Offers an analysis of 12 indicators from the ILO Key Indicators of the Labour Market database. The aim is to look for progress or lack of progress towards the goal of gender equality in the world of work and identify where and why blockages to labour market equity continue to exist. Focuses on the relationship of women to labour markets and compares employment outcomes for men and women to the best degree possible given the available labour market indicators.

The proposed SDN discusses the specific macro-critical aspects of women’s participation in the labor market and the constraints that prevent women from developing their full economic potential. Building on earlier Fund analysis, work undertaken by other organizations and academic research, the SDN presents possible policies to overcome these obstacles in different types of countries.