French-based cosmetics giant L’Oreal depends on scientific research to continuously improve its various skincare and beauty ranges. Every year, the company develops 5,000 formulas and just in 2008, it registered 628 patents.
It employs more than 2,900 researchers, 55% of whom are women. L’Oreal recognises, however, that in general women are under-represented in the world of science. In the past century, only 3% of Nobel Prize for Science winners have been women. [Read more...]
Women make up roughly half the potential workforce of the country, yet represent only 36% of the actual labour force. There is, moreover, a disproportionately large number of women in the informal sector, namely women who run small food stalls or who are casual and subcontract workers, and who do not receive any worker benefits or health insurance.
Those who work as casual labourers among men encounter various forms of gender harassment – from receiving lower salaries than their male counterparts, to being physically abused. [Read more...]