Labour market segregation between men and women

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Labour market segregationbetween men and women

• What to measure
• How to measure it

2
Contents

• A definition
• Causes
• Types
• Indicators
• Data needs

3
A definition

• Labour market segregation in general
• Practice of restricting particular population
  group(s) to certain (economic/non-economic)
  activities in order to maintain the economic
  advantages and higher social status of the other
  population group(s)
• Types of labour market segregation
• SEX
• Race, ethnicity
• Religion
• Migrants/non-migrants

4
Causes

• De jure - enforced by law
• Laws forbidding/hindering women from working or
  from doing certain jobs
• De facto widespread individual preferences,
  social customs
• Traditional female roles of family caretakers
  impede/encumber that they work (in certain types
  of jobs) or look for (certain types of) work, on
  an equal footing as men
• Subordination to men means that women are not
  free to work (in certain types of jobs) or look
  for (certain types of) work without approval of
  husband/father/brother
• Social and educational conditioning that hinder
  competitiveness to allow women to work on an
  equal footing as men

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Types of segregation

• In the entry to/exit from the labour market
• In the types of economic activities carried out
• In their labour inputs
• In their returns to labour

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Entry/exit

• Do they work ? Employment
• Do they look for work? Unemployment
• Do they work or look for work? Labour force
• Do they enter and exit the labour market? Labour
  turnover, life cycle patterns

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Types of activities

• The type of work they do - occupations
• The type of establishment they work in -
  industries
• The type of contract - status in employment
• The type of employer - institutional sector
• The size of establishment where they work
• Where they work - place of work
• Hazardousness of their work occupational
  injuries and disease
• Their voice union density and representation
• Social security coverage

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Labour inputs

• How much do they work - hours actually
  worked/usually worked, overtime,
  part-time/full-time
• How inconvenient are the hours they work - Night
  work, shift work, weekend work
• How often are they absent from work and for what
  reasons family reasons, economic reasons,
  social reasons

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Returns to labour

• Income from employment
• Basic wages
• Overtime payments
• Fringe benefits
• Social security benefits
• Regular and irregular payments

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Indicators

• Types of indicators
• Indicators to measure segregation in
• The entry to/exit from the labour market
• The types of economic activities carried out
• Labour inputs
• Returns to labour

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Types of indicators

• Measures of relationship
• Ratios relation between two quantities (a/b)
• Proportions, percentages quotient between one
  part and the total (a/(ab))
• Index numbers
• Measures of central tendency
• Mean, median, mode
• Measures of variability
• Frequency distribution, range, standard deviation
  
• Shape of the distribution
• Skewness, kurtosis

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Index numbers

• Value in relation to a standard value (often
  100)
• When are index numbers used
• Summarize large quantities of qualitative
  information
• ID ½ ? Mi/M - Fi/F
• Indicate variations in time
• Wage index (Wt W(t-1))/W(t-1)
• Types
• Simple index number
• Gender pay gap Wm-Wf
• Weighted index number
• Laspeyres price index ? Pi1Qi0/ ? Pi0Qi0

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Indicators to measure entry/exit

• Activity rate
• Gross Labour force/total population 100
• Net Labour force/working age population 100
• Employment rate
• Employed persons/working age population 100
• Unemployment rate
• Unemployed persons/Labour force 100

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Indicators to measure activities carried out

• Share of women in category i
• Women in category i/total workers in category i
  100
• Fi/Ni 100
• Percentage of all women in category I
• Women in category i/all women 100
• Fi/F 100
• Sex ratio (in category i)
• Women in category i/Men in category i 100
• Wi/Mi 100
• Dissimilarity index (ID)
• ID ½ ? Mi/M - Fi/F

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Indicators to measure labour inputs

• Distribution of workers by hours worked per week
• Percentage women/men who work less/more than x
  hours per week
• Distribution of workers by working time
  arrangements

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Indicators to measure returns to labour

• Gender wage gap
• (Wm Wf)/Wm 100
• Gender wage gap corrected for differences in
  occupations/industries
• 1/N ?Ni (Wmi - Wfi)/Wmi
• Average wage
• 1/N ? Wi
• Median wage - wage below and above which half of
  the population is found
• Distribution of workers by categories of income
  earned

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Data needs

• Complete worker coverage
• Sufficient detail
• Explanatory variables

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Complete worker coverage

• Coverage because of the SNA-93 definition of work
• Coverage in labour statistics concepts
• Coverage because of use of short or long
  reference periods
• Seasonal/casual activities

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Definition of work, SNA-93
Productive activities
Activities that produce services for the market
or that are carried out for payment
Activities that produce unpaid services for the
consumption of own/another household
Activities that produce goods (for the market or
for free)
Economic activities
Non-economic activities
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Treatment of non-market activities, SNA-93
Included (if the amount of that good is quantitatively important in relation to the total supply of that good in a country) Included (if the amount of that good is quantitatively important in relation to the total supply of that good in a country) Included (if the amount of that good is quantitatively important in relation to the total supply of that good in a country) Excluded
Growing or gathering field crops, fruits and vegetables Producing eggs, milk and food Hunting animals and birds Catching fish, crabs and shellfish Cutting firewood and building poles Collecting thatching and weaving materials Burning charcoal Mining slat Cutting peat Carrying water Threshing and milling grain Making butter, ghee and cheese Slaughtering livestock Curing hides and skins Preserving meat and fish Making beer, wine and spirits Crushing oil seeds Weaving baskets and mats Making clay pots and plates Weaving textiles Making furniture Dressmaking and tailoring Handicrafts made from non-primary products Constructing dwellings Constructing farm buildings Building boats and canoes Clearing land for cultivation Cleaning, decorating and maintaining dwelling, including small repair Cleaning, repairing household durables, vehicles or other goods Preparing and serving meals Caring for, training and instructing children Caring for the sick, invalid or old people Transporting household members or their goods
Source Based on System of National Accounts,
1993.
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Coverage in concepts

• Employment
• Unemployment
• Informal sector
• Income
• Industrial disputes

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Coverage in employment

• Persons at work for at least one hour
• Persons who work a few hours and whose social
  role is to be a housewife, student or retired
• The self employed
• Unpaid family workers
• Armed forces
• Unpaid workers
• Persons not at work
• Extended absences

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Coverage in unemployment

• Actively seeking work
• Willingness to wrok
• Being available to work
• Any work
• Only at home

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Coverage in informal sector

• Sectors often excluded
• Agriculture
• Domestic work
• Outwork/homework
• Work for the benefit of own household
• Main and secondary jobs
• Workers without fixed work location

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Coverage in income

• Components of income
• Basic wages
• Bonuses
• Payments in kind and services
• Social security benefits
• Family-related payments

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Coverage in industrial disputes

• Legal or official disputes
• Minimum duration of disputes
• Workers directly and indirectly involved

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Sufficient detail

• The more detail, the clearer it is to see gender
  differences
• Examples
• Sample size may not always allow the detail
  required
• In household surveys
• In establishment surveys

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Examples of sufficient detail

• Occupations
• Professionals by type doctors vs nurses,
  physicists vs teachers
• Managers in small vs large firms
• Craftworkers in mining vs clothes manufacturing
• Status in employment
• Regular vs. casual employees
• Subsistence workers and homeworkers vs employers
• Income
• Basic pay vs overtime pay, bonuses and social
  security contributions
• Hours of work
• Normal hours vs overtime and absence from work

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Explanatory variables

• All these indicators should be calculated not
  only by sex, but by
• Levels of education
• Age groups
• Family context
• Marital status
• Presence and number of preschool children
• Presence of elderly persons requiring care
• Therefore, statistics should be readily
  disaggregated by these variables

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stat/ilo.org

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