Despite progress on women’s labor forceparticipation in the past few decades, there remainpersistent gender gaps across multiple dimensions of jobquality. Women generally earn less than men. Gaps areparticularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa butalso persist in high income Organization for EconomicCo-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Women tend tobe concentrated in less productive jobs, run enterprises inless productive sectors, and are more likely to do part-timeand temporary jobs with fewer avenues for advancement, thanmen. Women are particularly concentrated into the moreinvisible activities, such as domestic labor and unpaid workor work in the informal sector in jobs that lack securityand are not covered by labor laws. In other words, there arepersistent gender gaps not only in labor force participationrates or the quantity of jobs, but perhaps more importantly,in the quality or types of jobs that men and women do.Having access to quality jobs which are stable, decent,secure, and productive is even more important from a genderperspective because women are more likely than men to beover represented in low paying, part time, informal, and lowproductivity jobs. This paper explores the multipledimensions of women’s access to good quality jobs, factorscontributing to gender gaps, and possible solutions oractions that have worked in different countries.
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