A/72/139 2008, reducing employment opportunities, the steady decline o f, and attacks against, freedom of association and collective bargaining, weakening regulation of the labour market and increasing competition for decent work opportunities as a result of the growth of the labour force. 30 Weak labour regulations 37. As discussed above, globalization has been characterized by an adherence to neo-liberal economic doctrines, which advocate a roll-back of government control over economic markets in order to facilitate growth as the primary measure of economic success. This has led to a significant degree of deregulation in different countries, including in relation to labour market management. The increasingly integrated nature of the global economy means that multinational companies have the ability to move operations abroad depending on the attractiveness of the regulatory framework in relation to profit maximization. 31 Countries, in particular lower-income countries, often seek to attract foreign direct investment as a means by which to facilitate growth, which is seen as the primary measure of economic success within neo-liberal economic doctrines. This can create a race to the bottom where countries aggressively deregulate in order to have the most attractive conditions for investment. This places companies in a strong bargaining position whereby they can encourage deregulation, including of the labour market, before investing in the relevant country. A lack of labour market regulation strips workers of their labour rights, leaving them increasingly vulnerable to contempor ary forms of slavery. Weak labour market protection is often accompanied by limited labour inspectorates, which also reduces the ability of government officials to detect cases of slavery and take appropriate action. Gender inequality 38. The causes and consequences of the socioeconomic trends described above are not gender-neutral. Socioeconomic discrimination and exclusion of women are systemic, profound and manifested in different ways. Poverty can have a disproportionate impact on women and girls as they face competing pressures to undertake time-consuming unpaid domestic and care work and contribute to their family income. In a time when the capacity of the State to provide social protection has been significantly cut, economies have become more reliant on the work provided by women as caregivers to maintain a competitive advantage, but provide no economic reward for it. This makes women more vulnerable to poverty. 32 Another manifestation of such economic exclusion and discrimination is that girls are significantly more likely to be out of school than boys. Girls are 1.5 times more likely than boys to be excluded from primary school. 33 A lack of access to decent work opportunities is another way that women are vuln erable to the adverse effects of the global socioeconomic realities that are enabling the systemic exploitation of people on a shocking scale. Women in many countries have significantly lower participation in the labour market; the World Bank calculated a global average of 50 per cent female participation in 2014 compared with 77 per cent for men. 34 Women who do participate in the workforce are often paid less than men for the same work, are more vulnerable to harassment and work-based discrimination, are __________________ 30 31 32 33 34 12/21 International Trade Union Confederation, “The 2017 ITUC global rights index: the world’s worst countries for workers”, 2017; ILO, World Employment Social Outlook. Tessa Khan, Delivering Development Justice? Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Discussion Paper, No. 10 (New York, UN-Women, 2016). Ibid. See http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/reducing -global-poverty-throughuniversal-primary-secondary-education.pdf. World Bank, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016. 17-11988