page_title: Women in the workforce
section_title: Workforce participation by sector
hierarchical_section_title: Women in the workforce / Paid employment globally / Workforce participation by sector
caption_attribution_description: English: The Woodstock Gathering festival. A press photographer Polski: Festiwal Przystanek Woodstock 2008. Fotoreporterka
context_page_description: Since the industrial revolution, women have increasingly participated in the workforce outside of the home in industrialized nations, with particularly large growth seen in the 20th century. Largely seen as a boon for industrial society, women in the workforce contribute to a higher national economic output as measured in GDP as well as decreasing labor costs by increasing the labor supply in a society.
  Women's lack of access to higher education had effectively excluded them from the practice of well-paid and high status occupations. Entry of women into the higher professions like law and medicine was delayed in most countries due to women being denied entry to universities and qualification for degrees; for example, Cambridge University only fully validated degrees for women late in 1947, and even then only after much opposition and acrimonious debate. Women were largely limited to low-paid and poor status occupations for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, or earned less pay than men for doing the same work. However, through the 20th century, the labor market shifted.
context_section_description: Women and men often participate in economic sectors in sharply different proportions, a result of gender clustering in occupations. Reasons for this may include a traditional association of certain types of work with a particular gender. There is a wide range of other possible economic, social and cultural variables that impact the gender distribution in different occupations, including within a region or country. An averaging of statistics gathered by the United Nations for 2004 through 2007 reflects these differences (totals may not add up to 100% due to rounding):
  Sectoral distribution of employed persons, by sector and sex (2004 through 2007)
  More detailed statistics show large differences even within these regions. For example, 11% of employed women in East Asia are employed in agriculture, a number that rises to 55% in South Asia; 70% of women in Southern Africa are employed in the service sector, while in Eastern, Middle, and Western Africa this number is 26%.
caption: A woman press photographer covers a music fest, Poland, 2008.
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