THE 2007 global economic meltdown indeed left many casualties in its wake.

But most crucially bruised is the labour force, which was seen as less important in the eyes of global powers, who preferred bailing out the banks with billions of dollar that ironically was provided by the sweat of the workers.

The aftermath of the economic crisis left many businesses with no other choice than to lay off workers in their thousands.

In specific terms, the global labour watch body observed that women are mostly affected by the slow recovery pace of the global economic crunch.

This development has been a concern to both the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that is made up by the tripartite bodies – government, workers and unions – and the International Trade Union Confederation that is strictly made up by the global workers’ unions.

Painting the continuum of the agonies of women workers as they reel under the economic crunch, a latest report from the ILO, in conjunction with the United Nations Women, declares that steps taken so far to mitigate the continue negative of the economic meltdown have been ‘one positive step forward, and two negative backward.’

The report says the gender gap in global labour markets showed some convergence in the earlier part of the last decade but increased after the crisis erupted in 2007, according to an ILO report produced in collaboration with United Nations Women. However, the picture varies considerably among regions.

Women face higher unemployment rates than men globally, with no improvements likely in the coming years, according to the report.

The ILO report tagged: “Global Employment Trends for Women 2012” looks at the gender gap in unemployment, employment, labour force participation, vulnerability, and segregation in jobs and economic sectors.

Globally, the gap in unemployment and employment-to-population ratios was moving towards convergence before the crisis. The crisis reversed this trend in the hardest-hit regions.

In the advanced countries, the crisis seems to have affected men in trade- dependent sectors more than women in health and education. In developing countries, women were strongly hit in trade-related sectors.

Commenting on the findings of the report, Executive Director of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet said, “while women worldwide contribute to the economy and its productivity, they continue to face many barriers that prevent them from realising their full economic potential. This is not only holding back women, it is holding back economic performance and growth, which contributed to the report. Guaranteeing equal opportunities for women and men is not just the right thing to do. It is smart economics.”

Other key findings in the report read in part, “from 2002 to 2007, the female unemployment rate was 5.8 per cent, compared with 5.3 per cent for males. The crisis raised this gap from 0.5 to 0.7 percentage points, and destroyed 13 million jobs for women. The gender gap in employment-to-population ratios inched down before the crisis, but remained high at 24.5 points. The reduction was particularly strong in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle-East and in advanced economies.”

The report also finds that the gap in labour force participation converged in the 1990s, but showed little or no convergence in the last decade. Both men’s and women’s participation rates fell equally in the last decade, mainly because of education, ageing and the “discouraged worker” effect.

In 2012, the share of women in vulnerable employment, (contributing family workers plus own account workers), was 50 per cent and that of men was 48 per cent. But there were much larger gaps in North Africa (24 percentage points), and in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa (15 points).

The sectoral segregation measure shows that women are more limited in their choice of employment across sectors. Sectoral segregation increased over time with women moving out of agriculture in developing economies and out of industry and into services in developed economies.

In advanced economies, women’s employment in industry halved, crowding 85 per cent of them into services, primarily in education and health.

The occupational segregation measure shows that women continue to be segregated into particular types of occupations. There is some evidence of a decline in the gap in the 1990s and a stalling of this convergence in the last decade.

To tackle the issues that the report highlights, the ILO Executive-Director for Employment, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs said, “policies to reduce gender gaps can significantly improve economic growth and standards of living, and in developing countries can be a major contribution to poverty reduction.”

The report calls for the expansion of social protection measures to reduce women’s vulnerabilities, investments in skills and education and policies to promote access to employment.

The report lists a number of policy guidelines to help households reduce gender bias in their work decisions and gender gaps in the labour market.

It calls for the improvement in infrastructure to reduce the burden of housework saying depending on the level of development, this can range from the availability of electricity and water, to sanitation, roads and transportation facilities.

It also suggests providing care services, particularly childcare and balancing the gender division of paid and unpaid work, mainly programs to increase fathers’ parenting shares.

The report stresses changing the costs and benefits of gender specialisation – mainly ensuring that taxes and transfers do not create disincentives for dual earner families and compensating for unequal employment opportunities based on gender, such as measures to eliminate the adverse impact of career breaks, through well-paid leave and right of return to post.

It declares that public campaigns to challenge gender stereotypes and to ensure the proper implementation of legislation against discrimination would go a long way to reverse the trend.

The ILO in yet another report entitled “ILO’s Global Wage Report 2012/13”, it conceded that though gender pay gap has indeed dropped but it was quick to note that the development is not for the right reasons.

The report says women pay has become closer to that of men in most countries but warns that in some cases this may just mean that men are worse off now than before the economic crisis.

One of the co-authors of the report, Kristen Sobeck said, “in some cases, this is because men’s situation in the labour market has deteriorated while women’s situation has improved or stayed the same.”

It points out that in Syria, for example, only about 13 per cent of women were economically active in 2010 before the civil war, but 74 per cent of them worked in the public sector, where wages were about 1.5 times higher than in the private sector.

There are major differences across the globe when it comes to how much-men and women are paid. Statistics sometimes vary depending on whether all full-time, or part-time employees are considered.

In Norway, the gap in hourly wages is lowest for part-time work. This means that men and women, who work part-time have similar pay. But men earn considerably more than women in full-time employment. The gender pay gap is even higher when all employees are taken into account, because a larger proportion of women work part-time, where hourly pay is lower than for full-time work.