Women workers have long been affected by the the gender pay gap, which is the average difference between the remuneration for men and women in the work field. This phenomenon occurs all over the world and across every industry, although it is more pronounced in certain countries and work fields.

Certain factors like maternity leave that make women take time off work contribute to lower yearly earnings for women. Although the pay gap has decreased over the past few years, it still exists, despite efforts by individuals, governments and organisations to narrow it.

There are two different types of pay gaps - unadjusted and adjusted. The adjusted pay gap takes into account the hours worked, occupations chosen, education and job experience. Unadjusted pay gaps are much higher. For instance, in the United States, unadjusted average female's annual salary has been cited as being 78% of the average male salary, in contrast with 88-93% for the adjusted average salary for college graduates.

Factors that contribute to lower pay can be due to both voluntary and involuntary choices. When someone chooses to work part-time when a full-time position is available is called a voluntary choice. Meanwhile, when someone has a low-skill job because they have no access to higher education, this classifies as an involuntary choice.

Even when the reason for the gap is voluntary, the gender pay gap presents a potential problem from a public policy perspective because it means that women are more likely to be dependent upon welfare payments, particularly in old age.

Evolution of pay gap

According to a meta-analysis by Doris Weichselbaumer and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer of more than 260 pay gap studies for more than 60 countries, from the 1960s to the 1990s, raw wage inequality on a global scale has fallen substantially from around 60% to 30%. The reason behind this decline was an improvement of conditions for female workers.

Economist Alan Manning of the London School of Economics, however, cautioned that the process of narrowing the gender gap has slowed significantly. Accordingly, women could earn less than men for the next 150 years due to discrimination and ineffective government policies.

Some of the factors that influence gender pay gap include gender-specific factors - gender differences in qualification and discrimination - and overall wage structure, the rewards for skills and employment in particular sectors, importantly influence the gender pay gap. Other factors that explain the pay gap is that men usually choose high-paying, dangerous industries such as mining, construction or manufacturing, which women prefer clerical jobs or to work in the service industry. The growing importance of the services sector has played an important role in narrowing the pay gap over the past years.

Almost all OECD have established anti-discrimination laws on grounds of gender. The OECD points out that: "herein lies a major problem: in all OECD countries, enforcement essentially relies on the victims' willingness to assert their claims. But many people are not even aware of their legal rights regarding discrimination in the workplace. And even if they are, proving a discrimination claim is intrinsically difficult for the claimant and legal action in courts is a costly process, whose benefits down the road are often small and uncertain. All this discourages victims from lodging complaints."

Nearly eight years after the Equality Act, the UK has data - the first of its kind in the world - that uncovers the gender pay gap in private businesses and the public sector. According to the report, men are paid more than women in 7,795 out of 10,016 companies and public bodies in the country. Meanwhile, eight out of 10 companies and organisations filed had a pay gap. These figures ring the alarm in terms of structural inequalities in the workforce and may be key to narrowing the gap.

Professor of the Wo+Men's Leadership Centre at Cambridge Judge business school, Sucheta Nadkarni, said that the error margin and other factors at work, the figures do show men are paid more than women on average.

She stated," Whether it is because women are getting paid less for the work that they are doing or because women are not getting equal opportunities to get into positions where the pay level is high - it doesn't matter what the reason is, but there is a gender pay gap and in most cases it's an issue of equality and justice. In both cases it's an issue of an imbalance of some sort."

One of the challenges the global facilities nowadays is how to tackle youth unemployment across the world. Nearly 400 million young people on the planet are unemployed and some of them lack proper education and training to compete in the global market. To solve the problem, according to the World Economic Forum, it's pivotal for the public and private sectors to "create more jobs and give young people the skills and confidence to fill them."

Although the global of youth unemployment is particularly this day and age, it fortunately is top of mind for global political leaders. In 2015, for instance, the G20 in Turkey docussed increasing employment, striving for "inclusive and robust growth through collective action."

Hosted by the World Economic Forum, during the Annual Meeting of the New Champions - the foremost global summit on innovation, science and technology aimed at promoting entrepreneurship in the global public interest - the attendees discussed the role of entrepreneurship in job creation and as a provider of opportunities to young people.

Their annual Job Creation Survey (2015) showed that entrepreneurs' hiring plans outperforms the rest. According to the report, 47% of entrepreneurs (and 77% of world-leading entrepreneurs) plan to increase the size of their workforce, compared to 29% of large corporations. Therefore, supporting entrepreneurs to grow their businesses can significantly impact employment rates.

According to the report, the major change will stem from allowing young people to follow their passion and start their own businesses. This initiative is expected to have a major impact in the youth employment statistics.

According to an EY survey from 2015, 65% of the 2,800 young people surveyed around the world professed their desire to run their own business at some point in their careers, out of which 27% want to start it immediately and 38% would like to learn from someone else first. These trends are most significant in developing markets, with Mexico leading the way.

"The challenge now is to provide young people with the support and the environment they need to turn their ambitions into reality," said Maria Pinelli, Global Vice-Chair, Strategic Growth Markets, EY.

Accordingly to the report, young people want more hands-on experience and mentoring from entrepreneurship. Therefore, "today's entrepreneurs and business leaders have a clear role to play in nurturing the next generation of wealth and job creators," Pinelli said.

It's not only up to the entrepreneurs to foster this youth employment, but governments have a role to play as wel. "(Governments) need to focus on providing the right environment to enable aspiring and early-stage entrepreneurs to succeed. This includes ensuring that the education system is fit for purpose," said Pinelli.

Pinelli cited a paper released at the G20 YEA conference entitled "From classroom to boardroom: Creating a culture for high impact entrepreneurship," where they "argue that governments must commit to, and enact, targeted education policies that support future generations of young entrepreneurs and help create a culture that is supportive of entrepreneurship," she added.

"Sadly," she said, "the young unemployment problem won't be solved quickly, or easily, and it requires a range of responses. Along with shorter-term macroeconomic and fiscal policies to help drive job growth, embedding entrepreneurship at the heart of the education system is a key, long-term initiative that will help provide an environment where the dreams of millions of young people to make an impact and start their own enterprises can be realised."

With youth unemployment on the rise after the 2008 financial crisis, many graduates started their own business. That's the story of Amie Samba, who graduated in 2009 when Britain was hit by recession and youth unemployment was on its way to a record of more than a million. Like some of her peers, the sports science and psychology graduate was only able to find short-term contracts and volunteer work, and the prospect of finding a full-time job seemed off the table.

"Around 2008, 2009, with the financial crash and the way the economy was, I wondered what my options were," Samba told the British newspaper The Guardian. "A lot of people were quite sceptical and scared. It was so competitive."

Unable to find full time employment, Samba started her own became and joined a generation of young entrepreneurs.

Japanese work environment is so intense to the extent that people the 1970s invented karoshi, a word that can be translated literally as "overwork death" in Japanese and represents occupational sudden mortality. The major medical cause of karoshi deaths are heart attacks and strokes due to stress, a starvation diet, and long work hours. Korashi also involves employees committing suicides due to overwork.

The first case of karoshi was registered in 1969 when a 29-year-old male working in the shipping department of Japan's largest newspaper company died after suffering from a stroke. It wasn't until 1978 that pattern of people suffering from fatal strokes and heart failure attributed to overwork was brought to light. The term was brought into public usage in 1982 when it was used on a book dealing with the issue.

The term korashi emerged into Japanese public life during the mid-80s "Bubble Economy" when several high-ranking business executives in their prime years suffered from a sudden death without any previous sign of illness. It was then that the phenomenon started to be seen as a serious menace for people in the workforce, which prompted the Japanese Ministry of Labour to start publishing statistics on karoshi in 1987.

Although the initiative was meant to decrease the number of karoshi cases, another employee death due to overwork took place in July 2013. 31-year-old journalist Miwa Sado died of heart failure after logging 159 hours of overtime in one month at the news network NHK. Her death, however, wasn't registered as a karoshi case until October 2017.

Meanwhile, in 2015, a 24-year-old employee of Japanese advertising behemoth Dentsu jumped to her death off a balcony in a company dorm room where she lived after working more than 100 hours in the month leading up to her suicide. Dentsu's president and CEO, Tadashi Ishii, resigned a month after the horrible event.

Japanese work culture

The concept of karoshi can be traced back to the aftermath of World War II. With a war-torn country, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida prioritised fostering Japan's economy. One of his initiatives was to prompt major corporations to offer their employees lifelong job security in exchange for workers' loyalty.

Although the plan worked to boost Japan's economy, turning a war-torn country into the largest economy in the world, Japanese workers had to give up work life balance. Within a decade of the start of Yoshida's plan, karoshi cases started to take place. With the purpose of making good impressions on their bosses and due to their loyalty ties with the company, workers started to sacrifice their personal time in favour of their jobs.

The long hours in the office, sleep deprivation and the burden of meeting with their employers' demands started to take a toll in Japanese workers, prompting a number of them to suicide or suffer strokes and heart attacks. These fatalities were recognised as being job-related and the phenomenon was known as "occupation sudden death."

Despite the population and government's awareness of this ailment, work-life balance in Japan is not much better today. After surveying 10,000 Japanese workers in 2016, a report focused on karoshi cases found that 20% of the respondents worked at least 80 hours of overtime a month. Half of the workers who took part in the survey admitted that they don't take paid vacations. According to the report, 20% of Japanese workers work an overage of 49 hours or longer each week.

Although karoshi used to affect mostly the male force, female case of karoshi are increasingly being reported. Young employees are usually expected to work long hours to climb up the corporate ladder. Some bosses expect employees to arrive early and leave late, which is the case of Takehiro Onuki, a 31-year-old salesman who regularly starts at 8 a.m. and finishes at midnight. The same happens to many other Japanese employees who work in white-collar jobs where hierarchies are quite rigid. Advancement is earned through great strenuous effort. It is not common for workers to leave their jobs, even if they are unhappy or overworked, because starting a new job means starting from scratch and not at the level they left. This leads to a generation of workers who seem to be devoted to their work.

One thousand three hundred students from every corner of the United States flocked to Pasadena, California, to talk about businesses they had set up. This is not an influx of young entrepreneurs and new startups in the world, as the businesses are completely virtual. Therefore, their products and services are not real and only virtual money is exchanged.

Organised by Virtual Enterprises International, the conference resembled a trade show, housing numerous virtual businesses offering products such as communications technology or food. The New York City-based group says it helps high school students learn modern business skills such as problem solving, communication and technology. The group stated that the project was inspired by the European tradition of apprenticeships in which students learn from people already working in a business or trade.

During the event, students from Miguel Contreras Business and Tourism School in Los Angeles tried to get customers for their virtual business, Big City Tours. The creators, who got some help from their teacher Darrel Iki, said that their business stands out for providing virtual tours to different parts of Los Angeles, providing customers with a a great guide to the city's ethnic heritage, take them to see high-end fashion or visit stores.

Meanwhile, students from Century High School in Santa Ana, California, were selling a translation device designed for travellers. According to students and teachers, the experience of creating a business feels very realistic. Students start with a business plan, then they establish a hierarchy and, according to Iki, they learn to "work together, having a common goal in a potentially successful business."

Nick Chapman, president and national program director for Virtual Enterprises International, said that students soon realise that operating a business takes a lot of effort and time. "They're running meetings, they're networking, they're meeting with professionals, they're working with mentors, all of the things that are really going to set them apart when they get into college and then move on into their careers," he stated.

Chapman also said that Virtual Enterprise International program welcomes 13,000 students each year. Students seem quite content with this experience and have declared that working on creating their own business will help them in the future when they enter the real world.

One of the students from Century High School, Miguel Santin, stated that while creating this company, it takes strong communication skills to run a company. He also said that he now understands the pressure of running a company. Working in a virtual company called Taste of the World, he was tasked with overseeing employment and digital media for the virtual company.This virtual company was conceived as a subscription service and it sends samples to customers through the mail.

One of the students from Century High School, Miguel Santin, stated that while creating this company, it takes strong communication skills to run a company. He also said that he now understands the pressure of running a company. Working in a virtual company called Taste of the World, he was tasked with overseeing employment and digital media for the virtual company.This virtual company was conceived as a subscription service and it sends samples to customers through the mail.

"You really need to be hands on with your employees and make sure you guys have strong communication. Otherwise the company just won't prosper as much as you would expect."

Teacher Alan Gerston, who helped set up Taste of the World, explained, "You sign up for three months, six months, a year, and you receive a snack box with trinkets and information about the company every single month throughout your subscription time."

"You would pay within our virtual economy," Gerston said, "using virtual money in a web-based simulated bank system," he explained. "All the kids in the program have bank accounts…so when they buy something, we give them a receipt," he added.

Stephen Jarvis, from the Elizabeth Learning Centre in Cudahy, California, told VOA that there is a lot to learn. He added, "It isn't just selling something. It's all the things that go on behind the scenes – creating documents, figuring out if you're making money or losing money."

Catalina Garcia, a senior who received financial assistance to become a doctor, is a student entrepreneur with the Big City Tours project, and she admitted, "It's helped me a lot because when I was trying to get the scholarship, I went to the interviews, and being in this company has helped me really prepare my presentation skills and be able to talk to other people."

Despite of what she does in the future and even though she will become a doctor rather than an entrepreneur, Garcia is sure that the skills she has gained creating the virtual project will help her in the future.