16
WO R L D D E V E LO P M E N T R E P O RT 2 0 1 2
for women to get maternal health care quickly enough even where it is available. And high fertility, partly reflecting low incomes, compounds the problem in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, the impacts of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the mortality of women in many Eastern and Southern African countries have been dramatic. The reason for the greater prevalence of HIV/AIDS among women relative to men is their greater susceptibility and the greater likelihood that their sexual partners are older and thus more likely than younger men to have HIV. In addition, countries that have had a low-lying civil conflict (such as Democratic Republic of Congo) have also seen an increase in the number of “missing” women. This is in contrast to other countries that have had outright wars— like Eritrea, where men who went “missing” in the years of war increased. An examination of the historical experience of northern and western European countries and the United States reveals that similar patterns of excess female mortality in infancy and the reproductive years existed there but disappeared between 1900 and 1950. These reductions occurred primarily because of improvements
FIGURE 8
Women and men work in different sectors distribution of female / male employment across sectors
31%
Communication Services
16%
21%
Retail, Hotels, and Restaurants
17%
13%
Manufacturing
12%
4%
Finance and Business
4%
0.5%
Electricity, Gas and Steam, and Water
1%
0.5%
Mining
2%
Transport and Telecommunications
7%
2% 27% 1% 100%
Agriculture, Hunting, etc.
29%
Construction
11%
All Sectors / All Occupations
100%
Source: WDR 2012 team estimates based on International Labour Organization 2010 (77 countries). Note: Totals do not necessarily add due to rounding.
in the quality of institutions—in the provision of clean water, sanitation, and maternal health care. Because there is only a single point of entry—through better institutions—for addressing female mortality, solving the problem is hard—much harder than getting girls to school. But for any basic notions of human justice, the global development community must make addressing this problem a priority.
Gender segregation in economic activity and earnings gaps Although women have entered the labor force in large numbers across much of the developing world in the past quarter century, this increased participation has not translated into equal employment opportunities or equal earnings for men and women. Women and men tend to work in very different parts of the “economic space,” with little change over time, even in high-income countries. In almost all countries, women are more likely than men to engage in low-productivity activities. They are also more likely to be in wage or unpaid family employment or work in the informal wage sector. In agriculture, especially in Africa, women operate smaller plots of land and farm less remunerative crops. As entrepreneurs, they tend to manage smaller firms and concentrate in less-profitable sectors. And in formal employment, they concentrate in “female” occupations and sectors (figure 8). These patterns of gender segregation in economic activity change with economic development but do not disappear. As a result of these differences in where women and men work, gender gaps in earnings and productivity persist across all forms of economic activity—in agriculture, in wage employment, and in entrepreneurship (map 1). In almost all countries, women in manufacturing earn less than men. In agriculture, farms operated by women on average have lower yields than those operated by men, even for men and women in the same households and for men and women cultivating the same crops.34 Female entrepreneurs are also less productive than male entrepreneurs.35 In urban areas in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa, the value added per worker is lower in firms managed by women than in those managed by men.36 For firms operating in rural Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Sri