Women's vulnerable employment fell from 88% to 65% — but is still 11 points above men's

In 2000, 88.3% of employed women in Bangladesh worked on their own account or as contributing family workers — jobs that rarely come with a contract, social protection or a regular wage. By 2025 that share had fallen to 64.6%. For men it moved from 59.2% to 53.6%.

29 → 11 points

Gap between women’s and men’s vulnerable-employment shares, 2000 and 2025.

The gender gap has closed mainly because women’s work has shifted, not because men’s has improved. The female share fell by about 24 percentage points over the period; the male share fell by about 6 and has been roughly flat at 53–54% since 2020 (2020: 53.0%, 2025: 53.6%). Despite the progress, almost two in three working women, and more than one in two working men, remain in jobs the International Labour Organization classes as vulnerable.

For policy, the figures point to formal-sector job creation and the extension of social protection to own-account and family workers, not only to getting more women into work. The data cannot say by itself which sectors or programmes drove the decline.

A caveat: these are modelled estimates produced by the ILO, drawing on labour force surveys, not a direct annual count, so small year-to-year changes should be read with caution.

Source: International Labour Organization, ILO Modelled Estimates (ILOEST), via World Bank WDI (SL.EMP.VULN.FE.ZS, SL.EMP.VULN.MA.ZS), accessed October 2026.