(ILO). A 2012 ILO report on women's employment in the aftermath of the global economic crisis finds that South Asia's "already massive gender gap in the employment-to-population ratio" has increased. Further, the ILO says that the increase was accompanied by a "fall of 3 million female jobs, caused both by weakening female-dominated sectors like garments and by demographic change."

Women's deficit in good jobs is smallest, at seven points, in sub-Saharan Africa, but P2P rates are also among the lowest in the world for women and men in this region. P2P rates are also relatively low for both genders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and in Southeast Asia, but the deficits for women are much larger in these regions. P2P rates are highest for men andjust those who are in the workforce, women lag behind men most in full-time employment in parts of Europe and Northern America. Full-time employment is more equal among men and women in South Asia, the Balkans, and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

However, even though women's full-time employment trails men's most in Northern America and in non-EU European nations, those two regions are among the top three where women are most likely to be in the workforce. Women are least likely to be in the workforce in South Asia and MENA, with fewer than one in four participating.

And, it is these same places -- MENA and South Asia -- where women also lead men most in unemployment. The unemployment gap is worst in MENA, where women are more than