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CONFINTEA V, the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education (report indexed at TD/INT 59.65) was held in Hamburg in 1997. The aim of the conference was to emphasise the importance of adult learning and to encourage international commitment to adult and continuing education in the perspective of lifelong learning. The broad and complex issue of adult learning was considered under 10 themes. In 2003, the CONFINTEA Mid-term Review Conference (synthesis report indexed at TD/TNC 78.108) was convened to review developments in adult learning and the commitments that had been made at CONFINTEA V. A workshop was held at the conference to examine theme five, 'Adult learning and the changing world of work'. This document is one of the papers presented at the workshop. It highlights globalisation as one of the main challenges in today's world; one that brings both opportunities and risks. While globalisation has significantly increased women's employment, its benefits are not reaching enough people, particularly in the Asian region. Globalisation favours workers with higher skills. Women continue to occupy low-skilled, low-paid jobs as few women have formal training or qualifications. A competency based training and assessment system that would allow the skills women have acquired outside the formal system to be recognised is needed and new adult learning approaches need to be adopted to motivate women and help them to overcome the barriers they face. Key priorities areas that are highlighted include: improving women's access to enterprise-based apprenticeship programs and on-the-job training for workers; the retraining of women for non-traditional fields; and providing adequate childcare and other services to facilitate women's employment and re-entry into the labour market.