ABSTRACT
596The increase of women in the paid workforce may arguably have been the most significant economic change in the past century. Yet although the female workforce participation rate has been rising steadily in many countries, it has not done so evenly across industry sectors. Healthcare, education and the service industry have the highest rates of female employment, while more manual labour-intensive sectors have lower female employment rates. Mining and construction have the lowest proportion of women employees (Figure 20.1).
