.." (2005) Within the informal sector of employment there exists a hierarchy and Stoparic states that employers running small informal enterprises "women are disproportionately represented in the lowest-paying categories, and even within those subcategories they earn less than men, further increasing their risk of poverty. The work of Heyzer entitled: "When Work Just Traps People in Poverty" published in the Herald Tribune states that: "Rural women spend backbreaking hours on family plots often for no payment at all. Those in urban areas work in unregulated factories, earning pennies for products shipped to markets far away." (Heyzer, 2005) Furthermore, "In virtually all countries, women still bear the primary responsibility for taking care of children, the ill and the elderly, limiting their ability to obtain the education and experience required for better-paying jobs." (Heyzer, 2005) Four Millennium Development Goals stated in 2005 included: (1) organizing informal workers in obtaining legal and social protection; (2) help the self-employed improve their access to credit and financial markets and to mobilize demand for their products and services; (3) creation of appropriate polices to support informal workers; (4) strengthen strategies to end gender inequality. (Heyzer, 2005)

The work of Selim Jahan entitled: "Reorienting Development: Towards an Engendered Employment Strategy" relates that "Development strategies in the name of gender-neutral, are gender-blind. The gender blindness of development strategies are derived from the gender-insensitiveness of dominant development paradigms, which in the name of work, do not make any distinction between productive and reproductive work and does not differentiate in the name of household, the asymmetries faced by its different members on the basis of sex." (2004) Jahan additionally relates that employment has been perceived "as the missing link between economic growth and poverty reduction. In fact, productive and remunerative employment is a critical element for equitable growth." (2004) the work of Weathers (2001) reports from females in the workplace in Japan and reports an investigation of the "effects of change in Japan's employment system on women workers by examining the temporary services industry. Almost 90% of registered temporary workers in Japan in women. Research,...

Indicated that a combination of gender, age and status discrimination closely affects workplace conditions, and that workers face high employment and income insecurity." (Weathers, 2001)
SUMMARY & CONCLUSION

It is clear from the literature reviewed in this study that the economic framework in relation to gender and pay is highly inequitable and that this is an embedded structural factor that needs redesign and redevelopment in order to ensure equitable opportunities in workplace pay, benefits and in attaining gender equity. Attention must be given to informal employers who employ temporary and flexible workforces comprised of women who are most susceptible to accepting this type of work due to familial and caretaker obligations.

Bibliography

Weather, Charles (2001) Changing White-Collar Workplaces and Female Temporary Workers in Japan. Social Science Japan Journal 4:201-218 (2001)

Benjamin O. (2006)

The Shaping of Opportunity Structures: A Work History Perspective on Israeli Working Poor Women Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Montreal Convention Center, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Online Retrieved 2006-10-05 at http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p103325_index.html

Stoparic, Bojana (2005) Women's Paid Labor Keeps Door Open to Poverty. Global Policy Forum 5 Sept 2005. Online available at http://globalpolicy.org/socecon/inequal/gender/2005/0905lucy.htm

Heyzer, Noeleen (2005) When Work Just Traps People in Poverty. 2 Sept. 2005 International Herald Tribune. Online available at http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/01/news/edheyzer.php

Jahan, Selim (2004) Reorienting Development: Towards and Engendered Employment Strategy. Online available at http://www.undp.org/poverty/docs/sppr/gender-employment-delhi.doc

Benjamin O. (2006) the Shaping of Opportunity Structures: A Work History Perspective on Israeli Working Poor Women. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Montreal Convention Center, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Online at http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p103325_index.html

The Sociological Aspects of Temporary Workers, and a Flexible Labor Force