WOMEN CHANGING PARTICIPATION IN THE LABOR-FORCE - A WORLD PERSPECTIVE

Women's economic activities are hard to compare precisely across countries and sometimes even difficult to compare within countries over time. Cultural variation in interpreting what is productive work compounded by differences in the statistical definition of who is in the labor force are responsible for much ambiguity in measurements of women's productive roles that straddle home and market economic activities. It is widely recognized that women's activities are changing rapidly in high-income, technologically advanced countries. The diversity in what women do is even greater across low-income countries, but there is little consensus on how these roles are changing today. This article assesses patterns in women's labor force participation and the composition of this participation among wage earners, self-employed, and unpaid family workers. -Author