Women and Development

In the wake of unemployment, global competition and deregulation, more and more women are joining an unforgiving job market. Are they in a position to exercise force against the discrimination they experience, and can they impose equality of opportunity? To change things women need to enter into combat on several fronts. For a long time, companies considered publicity to be a luxury and, in difficult times, the ‘advertising and communications’ budget was always the first to be slashed. Today, employers have become more aware that publicity has become a trump card in their strategy. Why can’t a similar awareness become possible on the subject of women’s employment? Financial problems and an evolution of mentality are the two core themes discussed in this paper on the equality of women in the world of work. It is of a two-fold general observation: women are more increasingly joining the ranks of the active population, however, this trend is not matched by a parallel improvement in the quality of jobs to which they have access. It is foreseen that women’s rate of participation will be close to that of men by the year 2010. In developing countries, the rate of women’s activity is only 31 per cent on average, but this figure does not take into account the very large female participation in the informal sector and in agriculture. Thus, for example, in India, the adoption of a more general definition of "economic activity" pushed the participation of women from 13 to 88 per cent.