Female employment in tourism is relatively high compared with other industries.
Gender inequality is often deeply rooted: in many countries women have limited or no access to land, capital and education.Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals addresses gender equity and equality “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. The data compiled in this section of the dashboard also relates to Goal 4 on quality education; Goal 8 on decent work and economic growth; and Goal 10 on reduced inequalities.
The first phase of the Dashboard used information from those businesses that report through the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). However, due to the limited number of reports filed, it was decided to use larger scale employment data. The ILOSTAT and EUROSTAT databases were used to extract information on female employment, and for the case of European countries on a range of other indicators. Note that the data in both portals are sourced through household surveys.
- The ILOSTAT data show that the tourism and hospitality industry is characterised by an even female employment (51% in 2018). The share had dropped from 56% in 2017, indicating growing male employment in the sector. Note that 2018 data may show slightly lower employment levels because not all countries have supplied their data yet. The number may increase over time as countries submit data to the database.
- The highest share of female employment globally in 2018 was in Public Administration (60%), and the lowest was in Construction (8%).
- Neither ILOSTAT nor Eurostat publish tourism-specific data on the seniority of females in the workplace – we hope to be able to add this indicator to the dashboard in due course.
- The European data on page 2 shows that the accommodation sub-sector in particular employs a high proportion of youths under the age of 35 with a share of 46% (this has come down from 53% in the previous year).
- Accommodation jobs tend to be more likely of a limited contract length (27%) than other sub-sectors of the travel industry. Air transportation appears to offer longer term contracts with only 7% being limited.
- The European data indicate several challenges, including relatively low level of education amongst tourism workers, short-term contracts, and high staff turn-over.