Despite a considerable improvement in access to work, women's jobs are concentrated in repetitive, routine and badly paid work areas at the lower, often dead-end, level of the labour market. "Female" market segments are similar in most economies and are clustered in consumer industries, public sector and selected services (hotels, catering, secretarial jobs, retail trade, personal care). Women are also considered by enterprises as a large pool of flexible labour and their employment is commonly structured around areas of frequent flexible labour adjustment. A large part of women's work in the formal sector is done under atypical work contracts offering not only lower pay but also a low level of social protection or none at all.