Not everyone who works is employed, of course, and a lot of work goes unrecognized and unrewarded. Some work belongs to the money economy, some meets social goals outside the economic sphere. Much work is drudgery, but much also brings satisfaction. Some work occurs as employment in formal workplaces, in large enterprises. Some occurs informally on the street or in the fields, some in the home.
Much work is necessary, the source of sustenance and income, but much is also voluntary.
All of these patterns and differences are strongly gendered. Women's work is much more commonly unpaid than men's, or not considered as work at all and therefore invisible, and women are over-represented in most of the more precarious categories of employment, as well as among the unemployed. The primary goal of the ILO today is to promote opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. Because of the diversity of forms of work, this goal is complex. That means not only wage workers in formal enterprises, but also the self-employed, casual and informal workers, the hidden, predominantly female workers of the care economy or of the domestic scene.