For Equality And The Economy

Exploring The Gender Dimensions Of Timor-Leste’s Tourism Sector

Tourism has the potential to be an important sector to drive economic growth, create jobs, and promote innovation for more sustainable development. Globally, the tourism industry employs more women More… than men around the world1 , and women account for 60% of employees in Accommodation and Food Services in Timor-Leste. This offers the potential for tourism investments to contribute to closing Timor-Leste’s gender gap in employment and to provide better opportunities for women entrepreneurs and women’s leadership in the industry. In 2010 and 2019, the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) conducted global studies on trends for women in tourism, in collaboration with UN Women, GIZ, the World Bank and Amadeus. The reports found that women represent the majority of the workforce, yet are over-represented in service and clerical level jobs, while representing an estimated 25% at the decision-making levels2 . Women make up a higher proportion of self-employed workers across sectors, but in tourism, this percentage varies across countries, highlighting factors that may contribute or limit women’s entrepreneurship in tourism. Furthermore, women perform significant amounts of unpaid work as part of family tourism businesses. Despite these drawbacks, sustainable tourism has been shown to provide significant opportunities for women’s advancement through formal and informal employment and enterprise development.

Year: 2021
Organisation/s: UN Women
Language: English
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