Women now account for 41% of global non-agricultural paid employees, compared to 35% in 1990, and the proportion of women in vulnerable employment across the world has declined from 59% to 46% in the same period. This is also true for the majority of the developing economies in Asia and the Pacific, except in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan where the proportion of women in non-farm paid employment is below 20%.

Despite progress in access to paid employment, women are still discriminated against in many countries when it comes to access to work and economic assets such as owning land or obtaining a bank loan. Men still dominate the global labor market, as three-quarters of working-age men are formally employed compared to less than half of working-age women. Female participation in the labor force remains especially low in South and West Asia where women’s participation rate is one quarter to one third of men’s rate.

— blogs.adb.org/blog