We have a critical fight to reclaim our democracies, our communities, the dignity of work and our rights as women and as workers.

We are witness to alarming decent work deficits in an ailing global economy, decent work deficits that disproportionately affect women.

The dominant model of corporate greed has driven a global economy based on exploitative wages, insecure and unsafe work.

It must end and we will counter the threat to equality, social justice and our environment posed by the power and influence of these corporations on democratically elected governments.

The global economy is no more stable today than it was seven years ago and the scourge of unemployment and inequality is driving economic instability and social despair.

Women have given up looking for formal work and falling participation rates demonstrate this in most nations.

The state of the world for working people and their families is very bleak.

Unemployment is again rising above 200 million and youth unemployment is a problem in every nation.

For crisis countries and developing nations — facing continuing unemployment with youth unemployment levels of 30 to 60 per cent — societal tensions are in ferment.

The International Labour Organisation estimates a need to create 600 million new jobs in the next 10 years.

Without a determined approach to rebuilding economies with sustainable jobs and social protection at the core of a co-ordinated global effort, we are facing an economic and social time bomb.

The decent work deficit is increasingly characterising the global economy and its supply chains.

Women have been hardest hit by the financial crisis as their employment and income levels steadily deteriorate.

The International Trade Union Confederation global poll of the general public in 14 countries shows that

• 65 per cent of women think the economic situation in their country is bad
• 54 per cent of women think their country is going in the wrong direction
• Only 12 per cent of women say their income has risen in the last two years
• Only 12 per cent of women think their government is focused on the interests of working people
• 66 per cent of women say laws do not give them adequate protection for job security
• 67 per cent of women say laws do not give them protection for fair wages.
• This is a strong indictment of the failure of governments to ensure decent work.

Women know what will ensure security and opportunity for themselves and their families.

Women are more strongly in support of a social protection floor as shown by the findings that:

• 76 per cent strongly support decent retirement incomes
• 78 per cent strongly support access to healthcare
• 73 per cent strongly support access to education
• 62 per cent strongly support affordable access to childcare.
• Sadly only 54 per cent of men indicate strong support for childcare which is critical for women’s participation in the workforce.

Women may be half the working-age population, but they represent less than one-third of the actual labour force.

For a decade or more, women’s participation in the workforce has been stuck at about 50 per cent, whereas male participation has remained consistently — and comfortably — close to 80 per cent.

According to the IMF, these global averages mask wide regional variations.

The situation is starkest in the Middle East and north Africa, for example, where about 80 per cent of working-age women do not participate in the labour market.

Women in paid employment still earn less than their male colleagues even when doing the same work.

The gender pay gap is around 18 per cent in the OECD nations and expands dramatically in the developing economy.

Women hold fewer than 14 per cent of corporate board seats in the European Union and fewer than 10 per cent of chief executive officer positions in Fortune 500 companies.

The proportion of women in government appears to have stalled at around 20 per cent.

Mobilising the untapped female workforce is a critical part of rebuilding our economies.

If women equalled the numbers of men in the workforce the GDP of France would increase by 4 per cent, Japan by 8 per cent and Egypt by 34 per cent, according to the IMF.

Women are over-represented in the informal economy, which now equals 40 per cent and growing. This is the sector of desperation where there are no minimum wages, no social protection and no labour rights.

Countries must drive investment in jobs, jobs and jobs — jobs in infrastructure, green economy jobs and jobs in the care sector, in health, education, childcare, aged care and other vital public services, investment in jobs and universal social protection, not just in developed countries but in all countries.

There is no other recipe for economic and social stability.

Sharan Burrow is general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation.