ABSTRACT
Inequality in the rate of women's and men's labor-force participation exists across nations. Ratio measures of economic activity (the number of women per one hundred men in the formal labor force) indicate that higher levels of national income do not reduce gender inequality in the labor force. The difference between women's and men's representation in the industrial sector remains relatively constant regardless of level of national income; at best, women's rate of industrial employment is only two-thirds that of men's. Women's relative participation in agriculture drops with higher national income; only in low-income countries do more women than men work in agriculture. In all but the poorest nations, women dominate the services; their representation in this sector is 1½ times that of men.
