CEDAW/C/PHI/5-6 work more easily in farms and rural enterprises than in cities. Among the women, the gaps are not so discernible. Educated women may have better job or livelihood opportunities in cities, but they have to earn enough to pay for domestic helpers, while rural women may not have as well-paying jobs as their urban peers, but they are more able to combine wage and farm work with their household responsibilities. 336. Overall, wage and salary workers constituted 47.7 percent of all employed workers in 1996 and 48.3 percent in 2002. By October 2003, women accounted for 37.5 percent of total wage and salary workers. More than half of the employed were not working for wages but were instead working on their own account as self-employed workers or employers (about 38 percent in 2002) or as unpaid family workers (14 percent). Women accounted for the majority of unpaid family workers, while men dominated the own-account workers (Annex Table B11.5). By October 2003, women accounted for 33.2 percent of self-employed workers/employers and 54.9 percent of unpaid family workers. Men also outnumbered women among the wage and salary workers, although the proportion of women workers in wage jobs has been increasing since 1996 at least. Occupational distribution, hiring practices and trade union membership 337. Jobs and livelihood in the Philippines are largely provided by the private sector, which absorbs about 43 percent of the wage work force. Government or the public sector employs about six percent. The balance is accounted for by unpaid family workers (10 percent) and selfemployed workers (40 percent). 338. In 1998, about 40 percent of the workers were in agriculture, 32 percent in trade or services, 10 percent in manufacturing, 5 percent in construction, and the remaining 13 percent in mining and quarrying and the utilities industry (BLES 2000). Filipino women are dominant in two broad industrial categories: trade, especially small-scale retail trade; and services, primarily in community, social and personal services. The same pattern was noted in the October 2003 Labor Force Survey, where women outnumbered men in the education sector (75.8 percent), health and social work (76.2 percent), wholesale and retail trade (60.2 percent) and hotels and restaurants (56.5 percent). Meanwhile, women continue to be a minority in construction (2.0 percent), transport, storage and communication (4.7 percent), mining and quarrying (5.9 percent) and fishing sectors (7.4 percent) and electricity, gas and water sectors (18.4 percent; NSO 2003c). The manufacturing work force was 45.0 percent female, while agriculture was 27.8 percent female. Outside of Muslim societies that frown on women’s involvement in trading, “selling” is reserved for people who exhibit “feminine” traits like patience, caring and nurturance, attributes that are viewed as important in building a core of loyal customers in the overcrowded small-scale trade sector. In large wholesale and trading firms, however, male workers outnumber women. 339. Women dominate clerical, sales and service positions. In October 2003, as before, there were more women than men among the professionals (67.4 percent), clerks (66.1 percent), and government officials, corporate executives, managers, proprietors and supervisors (55.7 percent; NSO 2003c). There were also slightly more women than men among service workers (50.2 percent). Their college education or technical training has helped them secure jobs as teachers, nurses and midwives, positions that are classified under “professionals” but may also 94