The East Asia and Pacific region has made great progress, relative to other regions, with regard to both economic development and, specifically, economic opportunities for women. However, aspiring female entrepreneurs continue to face unequal barriers to starting, operating, and growing their businesses. Not only does this hurt business women in the region, but it also ultimately hurts poverty reduction and economic growth. 'Economic Opportunities for Women in the East Asia and the Pacific Region' brings together data and available evidence on the constraints that female entrepreneurs in the region face with regard to: access to assets, business regulations and governance issues, and available avenues for expanding businesses and trading with larger markets. The authors present recommendations at the end of each chapter. This book will be of interest to policy makers, donors, nongovernmental organizations, and researchers looking to further examine the constraints that are holding back female entrepreneurs in East Asia and the Pacific.

Toward Gender Equality in East Asia and the Pacific examines the relationship between gender equality and development and outlines an agenda for public action to promote more effective and inclusive development in East Asian and Pacific countries.

This book provides a current and comprehensive analysis of the context in which Pacific women engage in the private sector, as well as a detailed list of strategies to increase their participation in business. Drawing on research and data from seven Pacific countries, it offers a diversity of innovative and pragmatic ways to empower women and enhance their economic opportunities. Jointly undertaken by the Asian Development Bank's Pacific Private Sector Development Initiative and the Government of Australia, this study is valuable for anyone seeking to support Pacific women and contribute to entrepreneurship, business development, and private sector growth.

This book provides a comparative analysis of the social, economic, industrial and migration dynamics that structure women’s paid work and unpaid care work experience in the Asia-Pacific region. Each country-focused chapter examines the formal and informal ways in which work and care are managed, the changing institutional landscape, gender relations and fertility concerns, employer and trade union responses and the challenges policy makers face and the consequences of their decisions for working women. By covering the entire region, including Australia and New Zealand, the book highlights the way different national work and care regimes are linked through migration, with wealthier countries looking to their poorer neighbours for alternative sources of labour. In addition, the book contributes to debates about the barriers to women’s participation in the workforce, the valuation of unpaid care, the gender wage gap, social protection and labour regulation for migrant workers and gender relations in developing Asia.

The unprecedented progress of East Asia Pacific is a triumph of working people. Countries that were low-income a generation ago successfully integrated into the global value chain, exploiting their labor-cost advantage. In 1990, the region held about a third of the world’s labor force. Leveraging this comparative advantage, the share of global GDP of emerging economies in East Asia Pacific grew from 7 percent in 1992 to 17 percent in 2011. Yet, the region now finds itself at a critical juncture. Work and its contribution to growth and well-being can no longer be taken for granted. The challenges range from high youth inactivity and rising inequality to binding skills shortages. A key underlying issue is economic informality, which constrains innovation and productivity, limits the tax base, and increases household vulnerability to shocks. Informality is both a consequence of stringent labor regulations and limited enforcement capacity. In several countries, de jure employment regulations are more stringent than in many parts of Europe. Even labor regulations set at reasonable levels but poorly implemented can aggravate the market failures they were designed to overcome. This report argues that the appropriate policy responses are to ensure macroeconomic stability, and in particular, a regulatory framework that encourages small- and medium-sized enterprises where most people in the region work. Mainly agrarian countries should focus on raising agricultural productivity. In urbanizing countries, good urban planning becomes critical. Pacific island countries will need to provide youth with human capital needed to succeed abroad as migrant workers. And, across the region, it is critical to ‘formalize’ more work, to increase the coverage of essential social protection, and to sustain productivity. To this end, policies should encourage mobility of labor and human capital, and not favor some forms of employment - for instance, full-time wage employment in manufacturing - over others, either implicitly or explicitly. Policies to increase growth and well-being from employment should instead reflect and support the dynamism and diversity of work forms across the region.

Despite economic growth, decreasing fertility rates, and rising education levels, women in Asia are on average 70% less likely than men to be in the labor force, with the country-to-country percentage varying anywhere from 3% to 80%. Results of a new simulation model suggest that closing the gender gap could generate a 30% increase in the per capita income of a hypothetical average Asian economy in one generation. This report discusses the reasons behind the continuing gap in the labor force participation rate between women and men in Asia and the Pacific, the impact of this gap on economic growth, and policy lessons drawn from specific country experiences in the region and elsewhere in the world. The channels of gender inequality are so complex that policy interventions must go beyond economics to effectively address them. Such a multidimensional approach to reducing gender inequality could unleash a nation's full potential for inclusive growth and development.

This publication is the first Asia-Pacific report that comprehensively maps out the intersections between gender and environment at the levels of household, work, community and policy. It examines gender concerns in the spheres of food security, agriculture, energy, water, fisheries and forestry, and identifies strategic entry points for policy interventions. Based on a grounded study of the reality in the Asia-Pacific region, this report puts together good practices and policy lessons that could be capitalized by policymakers to advance the agenda of sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific.