Women and Men in the Caribbean Community

Chapter 5: WORKChart 5.8 Services a major employer of women and to a lesser extent for men100Distribution of emplyed population by industry group, latest yearPer cent of the employed755025AgricultureIndustry0WomenMenTheBahamasWomenMenWomenMenWomenMenWomenMenWomenMenWomenMen* Antigua and Suriname * Montserrat Belize Trinidad Barbados * St. Vincent Grenada Jamaica Dominica * St. Kitts and * GuyanaBarbudaand Tobagoand theNevisGrenadinesWomenMenWomenMenWomenMenWomenMenWomenMenWomenMenWomenMenSaint LuciaServicesSource: Based on table 5.18*Data refers to 1990/1991.Services Industry AgricultureLabour Market OutcomesHours of WorkBox 5.3MEASURING PART-TIME WORKPart-time work is a more integral part of the labour market in the industrialised countries than in othercountries, and the labour market of the industrialised is relatively more flexible (with respect to therange of work hours offered). Unless specific questions are asked about whether a job held is parttimeor full-time, it is not totally accurate to assume that those who worked for less than a specifiednumber of hours in a work week (for example less than 20 hours), are all part-time workers. This isbecause the week of the survey or the reference week to which the data pertains may not have beena typical week (and though some may have worked on a part-time basis, others may have workedfewer hours than usual for involuntary reasons—including unexpected days off due to illness, emergency,temporary shut down, etc.). Moreover, what is considered normal work hours vary from countryto country. In the Caribbean, for the countries for which data are available, normal work periodsrange from 40 to 48 hours (ILO, 2002; KILM 6, p. 218). Similarly, when part-time work is deducedfrom the actual hours worked per week, there could be various cut-off times with respect to hoursworked. The 20 hours-a-week cut-off is used here to represent part-time, but the data availablereflect different cut-offs in some countries, as noted in table 5.20.Long Working Hours Less Common among Employed Women than MenPart-time work is more common among employed women than employed men (table 5.20).There are proportionately more women in part-time work than men in all countries exceptin The Bahamas, where 5 per cent of both employed women and employed men workedpart-time. Of the eight countries for which data have been presented, Grenada has the113