Employment of Women

The employment pattern for women in Western Europe and Japan is similar to that in the U.S. Before 1990, labor-force participation rates range from 38 percent in West Germany (now part of the united Federal Republic of Germany) to 55 percent in Sweden. Most of these countries have some form of equal employment or protective legislation. Collective bargaining is used more widely than in the U.S. as a means to improve women's working conditions.

Among Western nations, Sweden has come closest to achieving equality in employment. In the last two decades, women's average hourly earnings have risen from 66 to 87 percent of men's earnings. At the same time, the Swedish government undertook major reforms of textbooks and curricula, parent education, child-care and tax policies, and marriage and divorce laws, all geared to accord women equal opportunities in the labor market while also recognizing their special needs if they are mothers. Counseling and support programs were designed for women reentering the workforce. Other European countries have studied the Swedish model and some are adapting programs to fit their social-welfare policies.

Japan, the most industrialized nation in the Far East, generally has retained its traditional attitudes toward working women. For example, women are expected to retire when they have children. In most countries, the higher their educational attainments, the more likely women are to work. In Japan, however, this situation is reversed; college-educated women are considered overqualified for jobs generally held by women and often leave the labor force.

Employment policies in Eastern Europe were based on a belief in both the duty and the right of women to work. In 1936 the Soviet constitution specified that no legislation should deviate from the principle of women's equality with men. The USSR and its allies established child-care, health, educational, and recreational facilities. According to estimates, in the 1970s and early '80s about 85 percent of all Soviet women between the ages of 20 and 55 were employed outside the home; in East Germany (now part of the united Federal Republic of Germany) the number of employed women was as high as 80 percent. Women's participation rate in the workforce, however, was lower in Hungary and Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), which had less-developed economies. Although more integrated than in the West, women in Eastern Europe were still concentrated in some traditional occupations and industries. In Bulgaria, for example, 78 percent of textile workers, but only 25 percent of engineers, were women; in the Soviet Union, these figures were 74 and 40 percent, respectively. Although part-time employment was discouraged, about half the married women worked only part time. Communist countries reported that equal pay for equal work was achieved. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, communist governments in Eastern Europe lost power.

Much of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America remain primarily poor agricultural economies. Most women work in the fields and marketplaces, but their economic contributions are generally unrecognized. As men migrate to the cities in search of increasingly important cash incomes, many rural women are left to support families alone.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development has defined a “basic learning package” needed for both men and women in developing nations. This package includes functional literacy, some choice of relevant vocational skills, family planning and health, child care, nutrition, sanitation, and knowledge for civic participation. Illiteracy is higher among women than among men. Even in countries where some equality has been achieved, problems such as high unemployment rates affect women adversely. In African countries, some progress is being made in widening women's work opportunities. These women still do not have equal access to education and training programs, however, especially in skills necessary to a nation-building economy.