Employmentweb_low

EmpLoymEnT, work, And HEALTH inEquALiTiES - a global perspective
There is no single definition of permanent full-time employment.
The number of hours that are regarded as being normal for full-time
employees, as well as what “permanent employment” means, vary
considerably according to the country concerned. according to the
European Union labour Force Survey, in the EU permanent
employees are those with a “work contract of unlimited duration”.
However, in South Korea, for example, full-time employment is
defined as "working full-time with permanent contracts of over 3-
month in duration" (Kim, Muntaner, Khang, Paek, & Cho, 2006), and
in France it is centred on an employment contract of undetermined
length. By and large, a distinction is also made between employees
working 35 hours or more per week (full-time), and those who work
fewer than 35 hours per week (part-time).
The share of the employed within the world's working-age
population (aged 15 years and older), also known as the employmentto-population
ratio*, declined between 1997 and 2007. This population
ratio provides information on the ability of an economy to create
employment. although a high overall ratio is often considered positive,
this single indicator does not assess the level of decent work. It stood
at 61.7 per cent in 2007, almost a percentage point lower than ten
years earlier. The decrease has been larger among young people (aged
15 to 24 years). Within this group, the ratio decreased from 50.6 per
cent in 1997 to 47.8 per cent in 2007. The gap between men and women
continued, with 49.1 per cent of women of working age employed in
2007 and 74.3 per cent of men. The gender gap in labour force
participation is another indication of women's more limited chances to
take part in the world of work (IlO, 2008).
In order to analyse how full-time permanent employment is
distributed in the world, it is necessary to consider the lack of
trustworthy data available. although middle-income and poor
countries represent the largest work force in the world, work
regulations for permanent jobs are very limited, and there is often a
lack of data. In those countries, perhaps one of the best available
indicators is “formal work”, which can be defined as any job in which
the employee has a formal contractual relationship with their
employer. although formal contracts do not guarantee access to
health systems and insurance, the lack of such a contract seriously
undermines workers' rights to such services, mainly in terms of
receiving health benefits following work-related illnesses or
* the employment-to-population ratio is defined as the proportion of a country's working-age
population that is employed. a high ratio means that a large proportion of a country's population is employed,
while a low ratio means that a large share of the population is not involved directly in labour market-related
activities, because they are either unemployed or (more likely) out of the labour force altogether (ilo, 2007)
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