Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 5.13
South Korea. The women
in this photo sat near one of
the ancient temples in south-
ern Korea, selling the modest
output from their own market
gardens. This activity is one
part of the informal economy,
the “uncounted” economy in
which women play a large role.
© Alexander B. Murphy.
investments outside the country), does not evaluate
work in the home. The gross national income (GNI)
includes neither the unpaid labor of women in the
household nor, usually, the work done by rural women
in less wealthy countries.
Scholars estimate that if women's productivity in the
household alone were given a dollar value by calculating
what it would cost to hire people to perform these tasks, the
gross national income (GNI) for all countries of the world
combined would grow by about one-third. In poorer coun-
tries, women produce more than half of all the food; they also
build homes, dig wells, plant and harvest crops, make clothes,
and do many other things that are not recorded in offi cial
statistics as being economically productive (Fig. 5.13).
Despite these conditions, the number of women in
the “offi cial” labor force is rising while the proportion of
men in the labor force globally declined between 1990 and
2010. In The World's Women 2010: Trends and Statistics , the
United Nations reported “women are predominantly and
increasingly employed in the services sector” of the formal
economy. Combining paid work with work in the infor-
mal economy and unpaid domestic work, “women work
longer hours than men do.” The proportion of women in
the labor force grew in all regions reported by the United
Nations except Asia and eastern Europe. In South Amer-
ica, for example, the percent of women in the labor force
rose from 38 in 1990 to 59 in 2010. In North Africa, the
participation of women in the labor force increased from
23 percent in 1990 to 29 percent in 2010 while over the
same time period in Subsaharn Africa, women accounted
for 60 and 62 percent of the labor force.
Even though women are in the offi cial labor force in
greater proportions than ever before, they continue to be
paid less and have less access to food and education than men
in nearly all cultures and places around the world. A 2004
report from the United Nations stated that two-thirds of the
880 million illiterate adults in the world are women and that
women account for 70 percent of the world's poorest citizens.
The World's Women 2010 reported regional varia-
tions in agriculture employment for women. In Africa, for
example, the proportion of women employed in agricul-
ture ranges from a low of 19 percent in countries in south-
ern Africa to a high of 68 percent in countries in eastern,
middle, and western Africa. In Northern Africa, 42 per-
cent of women are employed in agriculture and 41 percent
of women are employed in services. In Asia, employment
of women in agriculture ranges from 11 percent in eastern
Asia, where 76 percent of women are employed in the ser-
vice sector, to South Asia with 55 percent of women work-
ing in agriculture and 28 percent in the service sector.
Although the number of women working in indus-
tries globally is small relative to the proportion of men,
it is rising. Employment of women in the industrial sec-
tor was slowed by the global economic downturn of the
2000s, as well as by mechanization, which leads to job
reductions and hence to layoffs of women workers. In the
maquiladoras of northern Mexico (see Chapter 10), for
example, many women workers lost their jobs when labor
markets contracted between 2001 and 2002, and then
again between 2008 and 2010.
As the foregoing discussion has highlighted, many
women engage in “informal” economic activity—that is,
private, often home-based activity such as tailoring, beer
brewing, food preparation, and soap making. Women
who seek to move beyond subsistence activities but cannot
enter the formal economic sector often turn to such work.
In the migrant slums on the fringes of many cities, infor-
mal economic activity is the mainstay of communities.
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