Asian countries need to address growing gender inequality in labour market says ILo

Asian countries, including India, need to address the growing gender inequality in the labour market by increasing quality employment options for women. The ILO report released today ahead of World Labour Day said 45 percent of the vast productive potential of Asian women remains untapped, compared to just 19 percent of men. The largest gender gaps were in Central Asia and South Asia. Pointing out the women representation of only 31 per cent of the total workforce in India, the report says 96 per cent women are informally employed.

The report highlighted various facets of job market and brought to the fore the fact that average growth in women employment is just 1.7 percent which is below the average of two percent at the global level. The report said that this is despite a 6.2 percent average economic growth in the continent as compared to the global average of over four percent. The female labour force participation rate in Asia was 55.5 percent , while that of males was 80.7 per cent