he did not make it to vocational school, but went to work in a garment factory. Conditions were bad: long hours, dim lighting, blasting noise, fibre particles always in the air, supervisors promising longer breaks in exchange for sex. Having failed to persuade her husband about contraception, she became pregnant again— and was fired. It was actually a relief. After the birth of their third daughter, her husband finally agreed to have a vasectomy. He brought a cousin from the countryside to provide childcare, and she succeeded in going to vocational school where she acquired accounting skills that led to a job in a bank.

In every society and every household, women provide critical economic support to their families, whether in agriculture or by earning income in the informal or formal labour market. Reproductive decisions and sexual health have a great impact on women’s ability to engage in productive labour and contribute to family well-being and that of the nation.

Housework and Care of Young Children

Throughout the world women continue to bear primary responsibility for childcare and house-work. This unpaid work remains economically invisible, but creates a foundation for all other economic, political and social life.

At the same time, pregnancy and care for young children impede women’s opportunities for employment. Women today increasingly lack the traditional support of the extended family, in which other family members participated in childcare and children helped with agricultural and domestic chores. Childcare is often a heavy burden on women who work outside the home to support the family. Poverty greatly exacerbates the problem.

Employment for Women and Reproductive Decisions

The vast majority of women in developing countries continue to be employed in agriculture, but most do not own the land on which they toil. For example, in South-east Asia and the Indian subcontinent at least 70 per cent of the female labour force works in agriculture. Yet fewer than 10 per cent of women farmers in India, Nepal and Thailand are landowners.

Traditionally, marriage norms, inheritance laws and social customs give men control over women’s access to economic opportunities. In many countries in Africa and elsewhere, women are not allowed to inherit land; without land as collateral, they cannot gain access to credit. Enabling women to inherit land and have access to credit permits entrepreneurship and changes women’s goals and status, and contributes to their having fewer children.

Where women work for pay, around the world, they work more and are paid less.

• In many developing countries, wage discrimination is severe. On average women earn only 60 to 70 per cent of what men are paid for similar work, in parts of Africa and Asia, only 50 per cent.
  
  
• When all of women’s work, paid and unpaid, is taken into account, their economic contribution is generally greater than that of men.
  
  
• Women work longer hours than men. In developing countries, women’s work hours are estimated to exceed men’s by about 30 per cent.

Women’s employment in formal-sector wage work is increasing. In developing countries, women now represent more than a third—in some Asian countries, almost a half—of the manufacturing labour force.

For young women in particular, wage work may offer not just economic opportunities but also the chance to learn new skills, make wider social contacts and experience more of life’s variety.

In Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan (Province of China) and Thailand—where modern contraception has been widely accepted, many girls are educated, and family sizes have declined dramatically—the numbers of women who have moved into professional, technical and administrative positions have increased substantially in recent decades.

The same is true in many parts of Latin America and Africa as well, but overall the proportion of women who have moved into desirable jobs remains low. For those women closest to poverty who work in low-wage jobs, especially in the manufacturing sector, conditions are often poor and even gruesome.

Use of family planning increases a woman’s prospects for employment, which can result in both economic benefits and better self-esteem. It also allows women to seek additional training and education, which enables them to get better employment. Earning an income improves marriage prospects for many unmarried women, and gives them a greater voice in the family when they do marry. Increased family income may reduce tensions related to poverty and reduce domestic violence. Many women report gaining a sense of equality through wage-employment, are more able to communicate effectively with their partners, and feel less vulnerable to abuse.

Women’s groups and non-governmental organizations play important roles in providing opportunities for women to gain knowledge, confidence and skills to find better employment while also promoting sexual and reproductive health, including contraception.

Risks in the Workplace

For the increasing numbers of women who take industrial jobs in rapidly developing economies, occupational health risks are many. Many are forced to work long hours at low pay under hazardous conditions and in unhealthy environments. Sex discrimination and sexual harassment are common, coinciding in many places with rising rates of crime and violence against women. Reproductive hazards are increasingly apparent; data indicate increases in spontaneous abortion, miscarriage, cancer, birth defects and serious teratogenic effects of toxic-chemical exposure. Women who become pregnant are often fired without benefits.