Global Representation of Women in Managerial Positions

As of 2023, women occupy only 30% of managerial roles globally, which marks a slight improvement over the last twenty years.

Gender Parity in Employment

• According to the International Labour Organization's (ILO) brief titled 'Women and the Economy: 30 Years after the Beijing Declaration', achieving global gender parity in employment rates could take over 190 years at the current pace.
• Women remain overrepresented in low-wage sectors like nursing and childcare, whereas men dominate higher-paid fields such as transport and mechanics.
• The gender employment gap has decreased by only 4 percentage points over the past three decades, with more substantial progress seen in high-income and lower-middle-income countries.

Income Disparities and Employment Patterns

• While progress has been made in closing gender pay gaps, women continue to earn less on average than men, work fewer paid hours, and are more likely to be employed informally, particularly in low- and lower-middle-income countries.
• In 2024, women worked approximately six hours and 25 minutes less weekly in paid employment compared to men but spent 3.2 times more hours on unpaid care work.
• This unequal distribution of care responsibilities results in 708 million women remaining outside the labor force globally.

Managerial Roles and Workplace Safety

• Low-income countries showed significant advancement, with women's representation in management increasing from 24.7% to 36.5%.
• Women are 1.6 times more likely to encounter sexual violence and harassment at work, with young and migrant women at even higher risk.

Challenges and Recommendations

Sukti Dasgupta, Director of the ILO Conditions of Work and Equality Department, emphasized the need for urgent reforms to address care responsibilities, wage disparities, and unsafe work conditions, which continue to contribute to workplace inequality and insecurity for women.