ILO – Youth Employment: Breaking Gender Barriers
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: August 4, 2008
WUNRN
Gender
Equality at the Heart of Decent Work Campaign ─ Youth Employment:
Breaking Gender Barriers for Young Women & Men
Type |
Press |
Date |
11 |
Reference |
ILO/08/35 |
Unit |
|
Subjects |
gender
|
Other |
GENEVA
(ILO News) ─ Despite efforts by the international community, gender
stereotyping and employment barriers continue to affect millions of young women
and men around the world, said the International Labour Organization today on
the occasion of International Youth Day.
Five years after International Youth Day raised the issue of high
unemployment and under-employment rates for young people, the ILO is calling
for renewed attention on behalf of governments and social partners to avert the
growing youth employment crisis. One billion young people will reach working
age within the next decade.
“It is imperative that we work together to strengthen the productive
potential of young women and men”, said Juan Somavia, Director-General of the
International Labour Office.
The particular dimensions of youth employment vary according to sex, age,
ethnicity, educational level and training, family background, health status and
disability, among others. But the overall picture shows that the labour force
participation rates for young women are far lower than those for young men.
Equal access to quality education and training for girls and boys remains
the best start to finding decent work. However, even where young women’s
education levels are the same or higher than men’s, young women face more
difficulties in the transition to working life because of continued labour
market discrimination. And when they do find a job, it is often lower paid and
in the informal economy, making them more vulnerable to poverty and
marginalization.
“A key employment challenge is tackling occupational segregation of
traditionally accepted ‘male’ and ‘female’ jobs, and to break the gender
barriers in opening up professions to both sexes,” explains Geir Tonstol of the
ILO Bureau for Gender Equality. “In many countries young women are still
encouraged to train in relatively low-skilled and poorly paid ‘feminine’
occupations with little prospect of upward mobility, while young men are
encouraged to go into modern technology-based training and employment, which
often pay better.”
As part of its year-long campaign on “Gender Equality at the Heart of Decent
Work”, the ILO is actively promoting decent employment for young women and men
everywhere, highlighting that rather than being viewed as a problem, the inflow
of young people into the labour market should be recognized as an enormous
opportunity and potential for economic and social development.
For more information on the themes of the Gender Equality at the Heart
of Decent Work campaign, please visit www.ilo.org/gender. For more information
on the ILO’s work on youth employment, please visit www.ilo.org/youth.
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