GENEVA, Switzerland, March 8 (UPI) -- More of the world's women work, but they've made little progress toward gender wage equality and often earn low pay, a report released Thursday in Geneva said.
Nearly half the world's 1.2 billion working women hold wage or salaried jobs, compared with 43 percent a decade ago, the International Labor Organization said in a report released on International Women's Day.
But women are more likely than men to be earning poverty wages or working as unpaid family members, the report said.
"Despite some progress, far too many women are still stuck in the lowest paying jobs, often in the informal economy with insufficient legal protection, little or no social protection, and a high degree of insecurity," said Juan Somavia, director general of the ILO.
The poorer the region, the more likely women work as unpaid contributing family members or as low-income "own-account" workers, the report said.
"The step from unpaid contributing family worker or low-paid own-account worker to wage and salaried employment is a major step toward freedom and self-determination for many women," the report said.
Last year, women set a record by holding 17 percent of the world's parliamentary seats, the newspaper said, quoting the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union. Nordic countries had the most women in parliamentary seats, with an average of 41 percent, the Financial Times said.
