The worst jobs are women’s jobs

Working men and women in developing countries face a struggle for daily survival, often earning poverty wages in desperate circumstances. The dream of decent work for all is still a distant one. Yet – despite their lower rates of participation in the labour force overall – women make up roughly 60% of the world’s working poor and are subject to highly exploitative forms of work in both the formal and informal economy. 

Indeed, women are overrepresented in the informal sector jobs, without social protection and beyond the oversight of the state. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that in 2012 more than half of all employed women worldwide were in informal vulnerable employment 10 and in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia over 80% of all jobs for women are unregulated and precarious work.

Women from the global South are also among the most vulnerable to exploitation in global supply chains. For example, approximately 80% of the world’s garment workers are women.They often work in dangerous environments and are at risk of violence or sexual abuse and have no basic labour rights, including access to redress when injustices are faced at work, or right to collective bargaining. The April 2013 Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, in which a garment factory collapsed killing over 1,100 people (most of them young women), was indeed a stark reminder of the shocking conditions that women continue to face in global value chains of international corporations.

http://www.actionaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/womens_rights_on-line_version_2.1.pdf