Stephanie Seguino, University of Vermont – Better Quality Jobs for Women

Economic equality between the sexes is improving, but we’re still not where we need to be.

Stephanie Seguino, professor in the department of economics at the University of Vermont, says as more women are becoming employed, they also need more quality jobs.

Dr. Seguino’s research explores the impact of globalization on income distribution and well-being, with a particular emphasis on Asian and Caribbean economies. She has been an advisor or consultant to numerous international organizations including the World Bank, United Nations Development Program, the Asian Development Bank, and US AID, and publishes regularly in a number of economic journals, including World Development, Journal of Development Studies, and Feminist Economics. Dr. Seguino has also contributed her services to local and global living wage campaigns.

Better Quality Jobs for Women

For the last two decades, gender equality has been high on the agenda of important international institutions . And so the question I sought to answer in a study of over 150 countries to answer is, “have we made progress?”

First, the encouraging news is that educational gaps between men and women have narrowed substantially since 1991. Today, women on average have about 90% of the education men have.

But the data indicate that closing educational gaps is enough. Women continue to be employed at much lower rates than men in almost all countries of the world and little progress has been made since 1991. This is a concern because jobs are the primary source of income and therefore women’s economic empowerment.

One reason that women’s employment rate is lower than men’s is that women continue to be saddled with a disproportionate amount of unpaid household work, including care for children and aging parents.

And the jobs that women get are often not the same quality of jobs that men have. In fact, this problem seems to be worsening. Women’s share of jobs in the industrial sector—where jobs are better paid and have more benefits than in other sectors–has in fact fallen since 1991.

So while women’s employment rates compared to men’s have been rising, they are increasingly squeezed into lower quality jobs.

Women still remain woefully underrepresented in political representation, holding only 1 seat for every 4 seats men hold. Legislative bodies in some countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Belize still have no female members.

Given the persistent gender gaps at work and in politics, it is becoming clear that market’s ‘invisible hand’ is at best arthritic when it comes to gender equality.

Some progress has been made. But we have more work to do to close gaps in employment and income gap.