I.L.O. ATTACKS SEX DISCRIMINATION

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33741, 14 January 1975, Page 6

I.L.O. ATTACKS SEX DISCRIMINATION

SCOTT THORNTON,

(By

Reuter correspondent, through N.Z.P.A.)

GENEVA. The 125-nation International Labour Organisation has chosen International Women’s Year for its most powerful attack on discrimination against women.

The 1.L.0. has decided jwhat women claim to jhave known for ages — 'females throughout the world are overworked, underpaid and undervalued.

| Delegates to the organis.ation’s annual conference in Geneva in June will be asked to issue a declaration proclaiming the rights of the : world’s 562 million women workers, and to draw up a plan of action committing member countries to take specific measures to promote equality. Officials of the 1.L.0., which is made up of representatives of governments, employers and workers, said this would represent an important landmark in the fight for equal treatment.

The woman worker’s lot had improved in the last 10 years, but she still had a long way to go before she was on a par with her male colleague, they added. HOME DUTIES

“Today’s working woman may earn only half as much as a man in the same job, but she sometimes works' almost twice as long as her husband each week, -if her duties in the home are taken into account,” the 1.L.0. officials said.

Average women’s wages in manufacturing varied from between less than 50 per cent (in Japan) to about 83 per cent (in Sweden) of those of men doing the same job, they said.

The officials, in a report prepared for the conference debate — an 1.L.0. contribution to “International 'Women’s Year” which has ! been proclaimed for 1975 by ( the United Nations—said the time was ripe for a full-scale assault on sex discrimination; women were slowly taking a more active role in the world’s labour force, of which they made up roughly one-third. “SUBTLE. BRUTAL”

"More married women and mothers are working than iever before, more women are (taking up part-time employiment, and yet there is still discrimination which starts in the cradle . . . and it is subtle but brutal,” the 124ipage report said.

Ways to restore the balance included better pay for women, better socialsecurity facilities, flexibility in working time for mothers, guaranteed re-employment after childbirth, improved child-care services, and more help from husbands in the home, the experts suggested. One of the prerequisites of sexual equality was a more equal sharing of the burden of housework and the care of children between men and women, they. said. The report, which will be a central topic at the conference and has the backing of all leading international trade unions, said: “In spite of the progress in a number of countries towards a greater sharing of parental responsibilities in the home and of domestic tasks by other family members, the heaviest burden continues to remain with women almost everywhere.”

All recent studies on the subject showed the time spent by women, including those with full-time outside jobs, far exceeded that spent by men on domestic labour. “Married women workers [with children are the worst victims of this overwork, .the 1.L.0. officials said. LESS EDUCATION Women tended to begin their working lives with several handicaps, including deficient education, vocational [guidance and training. UnemIployment among women had lalso risen irr some countries.

I “In many countries, efforts |to correct this situation have I been largely thwarted by traditions, attitudes, -and prejudices which limit women’s work prospects,” the 1.L.0. report said. “Women In developing countries have a particularly tough time because of economic underdevelopment, unemployment and poverty. Rural development policies rarely take practical account of their needs, or seek to prepare them for agriculture and crafts.

“Drudgery in the fields is combined "with household drudgery, multiplied by the lack or inadequacy of "water and of cooking facilities, and the absence of child-care services. Women’s total working hours are excessively long and irregular.”

The report said that the failure of women to receive the same money as men for the same work was one of the most blatant forms of dis. crimination.

However, the general-wages situation was improving. “There has been wider recognition of the relationship of equal pay to the whole question of equal opportunity and treatment for women, but there are still practical difficulties to be overcome,” the 1.L.0. officials said.

“In male-dominated societies, women’s work is apt, without reason, to be regarded as of less value than that of men. Advancement schould be based on individual ability and inclination, but it is not.”

The report criticised what it called the myths surrounding women as workers. These included claims that women were less reliable, that they were absent from work more often, and that they changed their jobs more frequently.

Analyses indicated that the skill level of the job, the marital status and age of the workers, length of service, and job stability provided better clues to difference in job performance than whether the worker was a man or a woman.