Employment of Young Women

MDG3 aims at promoting gender equality and empowerment of women, among other ways by increasing the share of women in non-agricultural paid employment. Paid, non-subsistence employment outside agriculture is essential for young women’s perspectives. This full chapter is dedicated to employment issues touching young women, discussing employment perspectives and women’s labour force participation. The focus then shifts to formal and informal employment, an important distinction in the 14 countries. Why do some countries notice a decrease in informal employment, while others do not? Next to be covered are unemployment and underemployment, the transition from school to work and child labour. Migration, addressed in Chapter 2, comes to the fore again because most migration flows are driven by employment opportunities and wage differentials. A chapter about employment cannot be written without detailing the female employment structure by industries and occupations, discussing the distribution of women workers and the female share in these industries and occupations. The Decisions for Life (DFL) project targeted eight occupations in the services sector that offer young women perspectives on work. The chapter ends with a description of these occupations.