Even when women manage to work, they are often trapped in low-paid, poor-quality jobs, frequently in the informal sector. Many work without labour protections and decent working conditions, with negative consequences for current and future income (including fewer rights to pensions), adding to the already unacceptable global gender pay gap of 23% between women and men.
UN Women showed, for example, that most of the rise in total employment since the financial crash of 2008 in the UK is in low-paid self-employment, with women accounting for 54% of this increase. As a result of such trends, in most countries, women are less likely than men to receive pensions in old age: the poverty rate of elderly European women is 37% higher than that of elderly men.
Women’s access to welfare systems, quality public services and infrastructure is now a priority of the international community. It is actually the main topic of the United Nations’ 2019 Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) event in New York from 11 to 22 March. Its conclusions are non-binding but can help structure the gender equality policies that countries implement in the years to come.
Nearly 200 trade union women and men from around the world will be attending and participating in this meeting as part of a global union delegation including Public Services International (PSI), of which I am General Secretary.
We welcome many aspects of the report prepared by the UN Secretary-General, ahead of the meeting, which emphasises a universal and rights-based approach to infrastructure and services. However, it’s not certain that governments will translate these principles into concrete strategies to end inequalities. This is what PSI and the global union delegation are calling for.
It’s also urgent to reform the global international fiscal system, as noted in the UN Secretary-General’s report. This means ending mechanisms that facilitate tax avoidance, which drain resources that could be invested in public services and other policies supporting gender equality.
Tax revenue lost by developing countries due to what’s called ‘trade mispricing’ alone is estimated to be worth between $98 and $106 billion a year – more than annual capital costs needed to achieve universal water and sanitation coverage.
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