WOMEN AND LABOUR MARKET

The situation of women on the labour market has always been subject to injustice; the market has always been in favour of male job seekers. Only after World War II women really entered the active population due to an increase in economic development.

In the majority of world´s economies women are the primary caregivers in their families and in their homes. Therefore, they find more obstacles than men when required to devote as much time and energy into a paid and productive work (not to say that their work at home is not productive).

The beginnings of the woman on the labour market were in the most precarious sectors, i.e. part-time, temporal or voluntary employment. The high-responsibility positions were being occupied by men, limiting women to those of lower responsibility. The increase in the number of employees receiving salary comes from the following changes:

• Demographic: due to the decreasing birth-rate and the fact that children are being born when the mothers enter a certain age, women are permitted to enter the labour market once their children have been raised. On the other hand the female population in productive age increases.

• Economic: the larger number of working women is also associated with the development of the service sector. Women´s participation is more important in the countries with an elevated GDP because the subjective necessities are bigger.

• Social: the number of single women or those who become the heads of families is growing, thus they require a regular remuneration.

Amongst the reasons in favour of female insertion in the market we can highlight: the end of legal obstacles, feminist movement pressuring and the educational achievements of that period.

There is a series of sources which regulate the labour equality on an international level, e.g. the international law and the ILO. The International Law recognizes all international treaties about human rights of the United Nations as well as the European system of human rights. The ILO (International Labour Organisation) in its convention nº 100 speaks about the equal pay for both sexes in jobs that can be considered equal or similar, and in the convention nº 111 refers to the job and employment discrimination.

As a consequence to some structural changes in labour sector, some new obstacles and threats to workers have emerged; social benefits have been cut by the governments, like for instance free kindergarten education etc. Some companies have begun to charge their employees for daycare service or to transfer it to private sector. All this has put women in a situation of a dilemma—devote their time and energy to paid work and professional career or to their families?

Another inequality between men and women at work is the salary. Globally, women earn between 11,1% and 38,5% less than men doing the same jobs. The countries with the biggest wage gap are: Brazil, Mexico, SAR, Chile, Russia, Italy, and the Netherlands. Although various regulations exist to prevent the inequality, we can prove that in the reality this problem has not been solved and there are still a lot of goals to reach and a long way to go.