CEDAW/C/PHI/5-6 number of women entering the labor market has been increasing over time, reaching 13.1 million in 2003. However, as of October 2003, the LFPR of women decreased to 50.9 percent. 327. Partly because of the way the labor force surveys generally discount a large part of women’s work, female LFPR continues to be significantly lower than male LFPR. In 1996, it was 49.0 percent versus male LFPR of 82.7 percent, and 51.7 percent and 80.8 percent, respectively, in 2002 (Annex Table B11.1).17 The spread between male and female LFPR is greater in rural areas, where work opportunities are seasonal or intermittent and where women generally work as unpaid family labor in farms or other family enterprises. The largest gender gap in LFPR, however, was recorded in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). There, male LFPR is almost three times higher than female LFPR (Illo 2002b). Cultural norms in many Muslim groups limit women’s mobility and involvement in trading and other activities that take them away from home, keeping women’s LFPR to a low 35.6 percent in ARMM and 43.6 percent in Zamboanga by April 2003. The women’s situation was made worse by the continuing peace and order problems in the area. 328. The gender gap has been narrowing in both urban and rural areas, and across age groups (Annex Table B11.2), as women actively seek paid work in a difficult economic environment that has made a number of men withdraw from the labor market. The improvement in women’s labor participation was most consistent in the age group 25-34 years. Employment and unemployment 329. In October 2002, 11.8 million women were employed in a wage job or other gainful occupation. This was 1.7 million more than that reported in 1996, or an increase of 2.8 percent per year. The growth in male employment was more sluggish at 1.1 percent per year. Nonetheless, women accounted for 39.1 percent of all employed workers, the highest during the last six years (Annex Table B11.3). By October 2003, the employment rate of women is 89.7 percent. 330. Comparative employment rates of women and men for the period 1996 to 2002 are shown in Annex Table B11.4. There was an overall decrease in employment rates for both women and men between the two periods as a result of the crisis in 1997 from which the country is barely recovering. Slightly more urban women lost their jobs compared with their rural counterparts during the period. 331. Relative to men, women’s employment or livelihood chances are better in urban areas or in regions that can offer educated women jobs in offices, or that have a manufacturing base that 17In most places in the country, the gender gaps in labor supply connote three things. The high fertility rate in the Philippines (3.5 births per woman, compared to 1.9 in Thailand, 2.6 in Indonesia, and 3.0 in Malaysia; ADB 2001) ties women to childbearing for years. Added to this are the years involved in childrearing, a result of a sexual division of labor at home that leaves childcare to women. Unless child minders are available, women tend to limit their economic involvement to enterprises that they could do at home or close to home. Informal-economy work has allowed many women to combine home and market work, as apparent in a similar LFPR-age pattern for women and men. The persistent crisis situation, however, seemed to be pushing all women, including those who are in age groups that are associated with having young children, to join the labor market in increasing number. 92