1. The work session on Statistics on Women was held in Geneva from 6-8 March 1995. It was attended by Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The European Union was represented by Eurostat. The International Labour Office (ILO), United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) and the United Nations Statistical Division were also represented. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) also attended. The following non-governmental organizations were represented: Zonta International, International Federation of Business and Professional Women (I.F.B.P.W.), International Federation of University Women (IFUW), International Council of Jewish Women, National Council of German Women's Organizations, the International Baccalaureate Organisation and the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices.
2. The provisional agenda (Working Paper No. 1) was adopted.
3. Ms. Eeva-Sisko Veikkola (Finland) and Ms. Birgitta Hedman (Sweden) were elected to co-chair the meeting.
4. The participants were informed of the revision the Conference of European Statisticians had made to Sub-programme 4 of its programme of work, Social and Demographic Statistics. They welcomed the change in the title of programme element 4.2 to Gender Statistics and noted that both the number of papers that countries had contributed to the meeting (24) and the number of participants (38) were good indicators of the strong interest that countries have in exchanging experiences in this field of statistics. The Meeting also welcomed the fact that several countries not able to participate in the meeting had submitted papers which contributed substantially to the discussion.
5. Statistics Sweden informed the meeting about the status of the forthcoming publication on statistics of women and men in the ECE region. To help ensure that the publication will be ready for the World Conference on Women in Beijing, the publication is being produced jointly by the ECE, Eurostat, INSTRAW and Statistics Sweden. Countries who had not yet provided all the data were strongly encouraged to do so. The meeting also asked the secretariat to look into possibilites for producing an updated version of the publication in the future.
6. The meeting was also informed about the outcome of the High- Level Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Fourth World Conference on Women, which had been organized by the ECE in October 1994 in Vienna. The prominent role given to gender statistics in the Regional platform for action document was welcome as was the recommendation of the Vienna meeting to mainstream women's issues into ECE's activities. It was suggested that, whenever possible, a gender perspective could be included on the agendas of meetings convened by the Conference in individual fields of statistics (e.g. in social and economic statistics).
7. Under future work the meeting discussed a draft prepared by an informal task force of country representatives concerning the topics for the next meeting as well as what should be the main objectives and expected outputs of international work in gender statistics. After a stock-taking discussion of recent and planned future needs and developments in this field in countries throughout the region, the participants recommended that the text given below be included in the integrated presentation of the Conference's work programme. They also recommended that the Conference organize a similar type of joint meeting in three years time to discuss the topics listed in the "Activities of ECE" section. They recommended that the following text be included in the Conference's programme of work:
Objectives over the next several years: To promote the collection, maintenance, improvement and harmonization of data disaggregated by sex, including the improvement of concepts and methodologies i) to assess and monitor women's and men's contribution to the economy and society, ii) to identify sex differences in living conditions and status over the course of a lifetime, iii) to encourage the integration of the gender perspective in all statistical areas.
Expected collective output in the next two years: The organization of an exchange of documentation describing country experiences in developing policy-relevant approaches for monitoring and assessing women and men's contribution to both the national and household or family economies. For ECE, INSTRAW and UNSD, report of the 1997/98 work session convened to deal with issues such as these.
Activities of ECE: (CES Priority A)
a) Publication on statistics of women and men in the ECE region (1995/96, jointly with Eurostat, INSTRAW and Statistics Sweden).
b) Further joint ECE/INSTRAW/UNSD work session to be held in 1997/98 to consider gender dimensions of the following topics: i) economic well-being: earnings and income and career mobility over the course of a lifetime, poverty, private and public financial transfers, and equal pay for work of equal value; (ii) caring activities: who cares for whom over the course of a lifetime, payment for caring activities (data on both who pays and who is paid); (iii) unpaid work: developments in the measurement of unpaid work and its inclusion in satellite accounts systems; (iv) progress in the statistical measurement of violence and crime.
8. The conclusions reached by the participants during discussion of the substantive items of the agenda are summarized in English only in the Annex.
9. The participants adopted the report of the meeting at its closing session.
1. The following were some of the main conclusions that emerged during discussion on various different themes, and which the participants considered should be taken into account in any planned future work to be conducted under the auspices of the Conference of European Statisticians in this field.
2. Most of the papers presented and the discussion on this topic referred to the importance of establishing satellite accounts and to the relevance of time-use data for measuring and valuing unpaid work. The session recognized the significant progress that has been accomplished since the last session in 1992, particularly the efforts undertaken at both the international and national levels, to establish satellite accounts on household production.
3. Many participants agreed that output-based valuation is a more acceptable approach to valuing unpaid work primarily because of its compatibility with SNA methodology. Moreover, it was also recommended that the discussion on what activities should be included within the satellite accounts must be further pursued. In particular, should its boundary include all unpaid activities (including those that are already within the SNA production boundary) or should it be limited only to unpaid activities (services) that fall completely outside of the SNA production boundary?
4. The inclusion of receiving education or skills/personal development and training within the satellite accounts was also highlighted. A discussion is currently going on in the international community about whether education is to be considered as a consumption activity or as a productive activity. The meeting had no final answer to offer but concluded that education is a very special kind of investment activity that serves to sustain or enhance future productivity and quality of life. As such some participants argued that it should be included in the satellite household accounts.
5. A common finding for all the countries who had established a system for satellite accounts was that the imputed value to the output of household production was very large. In this connection, the participants noted that it was important to underline that the estimate covered the contribution of both women and men doing unpaid work, taking care not to understate the contribution of women because of wage differentials.
6. The participants agreed that the need for time-use data and its importance must be further stressed and the work in developing techniques for valuing unpaid work must be continued.
7. The meeting was pleased to see that so many countries are now working on labour market segregation and earning differentials. A common pattern of occupational segregation and pay differences between women and men in the region was demonstrated in a number of studies presented on this topic. While men dominate in parts of the labour market, including the executive and managerial jobs, women are concentrated in low- paying services, care occupations and secretarial jobs. This segregation of the labour market largely explains the existing overall wage differentials where women generally receive between 70 and 80 per cent of men's wages. However, although this general pattern holds for most countries, the extent of wage differentials by sex varies between occupations, industries and countries.
8. It was also felt that, to make further progress in understanding national occupational and pay differences, information was needed at a more detailed level on occupation. It was agreed that longitudinal/cohort surveys were an ideal means of obtaining such information. The statistical offices also had a role to play in increasing user understanding and awareness of the results of these studies.
9. The International Labour Organisation reported on its recent publication "Gender Inequality in the Labour Market: Occupational Concentration and Segregation" (1994), a methodological manual which would be very useful for the countries and a document entitled Handbook on methodologies to measure gender wage differentials. An ILO database called "SEGREGAT" has also been established containing data on employment and detailed occupational groups for 40 countries, designed to enable the measurement and analysis of occupational segregation between women and men.
10. Studies carried out by a number of countries on this topic revealed very similar patterns with very few women holding higher managerial posts and with much lower salary levels. Although women's overall representation in managerial positions had increased over the years particularly in the public sector, at the decision-making levels and in the private sector, women are still strongly underrepresented. Some countries reported that in the last decade, women's participation at the senior decision- making level had progressed considerably in some spheres (e.g. political and legal) but not in others (e.g. media and business). Salary differentials at the managerial level were usually found to be larger than the overall average even when controlled for age and education differentials. Public sector salaries are also found to be lower on average than private sector salaries; and the higher the level of managerial positions, the greater the segregation.
11. The difficulty in making international comparisons of these findings was underlined, given that the studies used different definitions of managers at various levels. It was also felt that studies needed to describe more than cross sectional pictures and that trends were important to reflect. To show women's progress in empowerment one should not limit studies to only the highest decision levels, but show women's progression up the ladder and make this visible to the public. Similarly, greater use of statistical analysis and econometric tools was mentioned as necessary in order to probe further into the various factors that can influence women's position in the labour force.
12. Participants reported on the health data available in their countries and on some of the studies carried out related to the health needs of their elderly populations. In some countries the available data were not always analyzed with a gender perspective although many health problems are either unique to elderly women or affect women differently than men. It was noted that the introduction of a gender perspective should already be done at the planning stage to ensure that the sample adequately covered both men and women.
13. It was also emphasized that in looking at policy needs related to aging, it was necessary to consider, in addition to health care, other aspects such as living conditions, caring conditions, marginalization etc. A 1994 General Assembly Resolution has called attention to the issues of aging in this broader framework which include the potential contribution of the elderly to society.
14. The meeting concluded that in most countries there is an urgent need to improve the statistical information on elderly women and men and that it was important not only to study their health-related problems and needs but also to look at caring for and time-use of the elderly. This is particularly relevant to the ECE region where the elderly population is rapidly growing and constitutes the major consumer-group of health services.
15. The meeting was informed about the contents of the statistically related part of the Global Platform for Action which currently are being prepared by the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which acts as the preparatory committee for the Fourth World Conference on Women.
16. The participants also reported on this topic about the many preparations to the Fourth World Conference on Women which were under way in their countries and institutions.