Enabling women to inherit land and have access to credit permits entrepreneurship and changes women's goals and status, and contributes to their having fewer children. Where women work for pay, around the world, they work more and are paid less. In many developing countries, wage discrimination is severe. On average women earn only 60 to 70 per cent of what men are paid for similar work, in parts of Africa and Asia, only 50 per cent. When all of women's work, paid and unpaid, is taken into account, their economic contribution is generally greater than that of men.
Women work longer hours than men.
In developing countries, women's work hours are estimated to exceed men's by about 30 per cent. Women's employment in formal-sector wage work is increasing. For young women in particular, wage work may offer not just economic opportunities but also the chance to learn new skills, make wider social contacts and experience more of life's variety. The same is true in many parts of Latin America and Africa as well, but overall the proportion of women who have moved into desirable jobs remains low. For those women closest to poverty who work in low-wage jobs, especially in the manufacturing sector, conditions are often poor and even gruesome.