More women are stepping into high-productivity service jobs, says the World Bank

Services make up a growing share of world economies, and the share of women working in those services is rising, according to new research.

The services sector, which ranges from communications and transport to finance, education and tourism, generates more than two-thirds of global gross domestic product (GDP) and employs more workers than any other sector.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) calls it “the backbone of the world economy”, saying that technological advances have made it easier to supply services across borders, opening new opportunities for national economies and individuals.

Services jobs are a key source of female empowerment, according to Trade Services in Development, a joint report from the World Bank and the WTO.

While the data shows the sector can promote more inclusive development paths, significant gaps and barriers remain to women’s progress across the wider workforce.

The World Bank-WTO report says services have “a positive gender dimension and play an important role in women’s empowerment”.

It shows that in 2021, 59% of employed women globally worked in the sector, up from 44% in 2000. In contrast, services accounted for 45% of total male employment in 2021.

The share of women working in services has increased across all economies, with the biggest rises in upper-middle-income (22 percentage points) and lower-middle-income (14 percentage points) economies.

The sector is the source of most new job creation, especially for young people and women.

Women-led firms, particularly those with a remote delivery model, have more success in services. This suggests some gender-specific barriers to female entrepreneurship “may prove less onerous than in industry”, the report says.

The International Labour Organization highlights sectors such as tourism as holding potential for women’s empowerment, helping many women become entrepreneurs and creating opportunities in related sectors. But challenges, including higher rates of informal work, remain.

The rising share of women working in professional services was also underscored by the most recent World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report. However, it shows some significant gaps. For example, the share of women compared to men in science, technology, engineering and maths roles in professional services is still much lower – an almost 20 percentage point gap.

Overall, the Economic Participation and Opportunity gap is 60.5% closed – and at current rates, it will take 152 years to reach parity in this area.

The advancement of women at work is good for everyone and could increase global GDP by 20%, according to the World Bank.

At the current rate of investments, though, more than 340 million women and girls will still live in extreme poverty by 2030, according to UN Women, which says it has never been more urgent to advance women’s economic empowerment.

Accelerating this empowerment requires action that includes connecting women with financial resources, increasing meaningful participation in sectors where women are underrepresented, and transforming care systems so women no longer carry the burden of unpaid care and domestic work. Women are estimated to spend, on average, about triple the time men spend on this, limiting their time and opportunities for education and paid employment.

As the Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report says: “Big lifts in economic gender parity are needed to ensure that women have unfettered access to resources, opportunities and decision-making positions.

“Governments are called on to expand and strengthen the framework conditions needed for business and civil society to work together in making gender parity an economic imperative.”