We’re Still 132 Years From Reaching Gender Equity
Part 1 of a 4 part series
The State of Equity Around the World
We have made significant progress in recent history toward gender equality, and yet the road ahead to ensure equity and inclusion of women appears quite long. On average, 25% of gender disparities in labour force participation remain throughout the world, ranging from 10% in countries that are a part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), to less than 50% in the Middle East and North Africa.
In addition, in some regions when women do participate, the observations by Christine Lagarde in 2014 that they are often confined to low-paying, low-status jobs and disproportionately excluded from positions of leadership, is still observed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) findings in 2022. The WEF points out that, despite more women participating in paid work and increasingly, leadership positions, the percentage is still low due to a number of factors restricting educational opportunities and career options. These include: social and cultural expectations, workplace policies, the legal environment, and the accessibility of care infrastructure.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top ten economies have eradicated at least 80% of their gender imbalances, with Iceland leading the global ranking, as well as being the only country to have closed its gender gap by more than 90%. Scandinavian countries seem to claim multiple places in the top five countries on their way to achieving full parity.
North America by a hair’s breadth is the most advanced region in terms of closing the gender gap. The region’s average parity score is 76.9%, which reduces the number of years required to close the gap from 62 to 59.
Europe currently has the second-highest level of gender parity, at 76.6% and 60 years to close the gap. Latin America and the Caribbean are ranked third as they closed the gender gap by 72.6%. If current trends continue, Latin America and the Caribbean will close the gap in 67 years.
Taking an industry-specific approach, as expected, more client-facing industries tend to have better representation of women in their workforce at junior management level. However, these indicators have stayed stable over the past five years. The best performing industries are the financials, healthcare and real estate sectors, while those trailing include information technology, industrials, utilities, energy and material sectors.
The Key Factor Contributing to Gender Inequity
Globally, the principal reason given by women of working age for being outside the labour force was unpaid care work, whereas for men it was “being in education, sick or disabled.” Without exception, the amount of time dedicated by women to unpaid care work increases markedly with the presence of young children in a household. This results in what can be termed a “motherhood employment penalty,” which is found consistently across all regions for women living with young children and is particularly marked in middle-income countries. Women who work for pay are commonly said to work a “second shift” or experience a “double day,” one at home and one in the workplace.
Women provide 76% of unpaid care work globally, irrespective of location, class and culture. They carry out 12.5 billion hours of unpaid care work every day. When valued at minimum wage, this would represent a contribution to the global economy of at least $10.8 trillion a year, more than three times the size of the global tech industry.
Unpaid care means household duties such as cooking, cleaning, child care, elder care, caring for those with physical and mental illnesses and disabilities and where appropriate water and fuel collection. These domestic duties are essential to a well-functioning society and economy — and they are often overlooked. Unpaid care and domestic work is valued to be 10 and 39% of the GDP and can contribute more to the economy than the manufacturing, commerce or transportation sectors.
Despite its economic value, unpaid care work is not included in labour force surveys. Nor is it brought into the calculation of GDP. It is therefore invisible in representations of the economy that inform policy making. Similarly, despite its importance for meeting many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) the SDGs themselves do not mention unpaid care work.
In a study based on 23 countries men’s contribution to unpaid care work has increased over the last 20 years, however at the current rate of change, it would take 210 years to close the gender gap in unpaid care work.
COVID 19 Pandemic Sent Us Backwards On Gender Equity
There’s no doubt that both men and women were seriously impacted by the pandemic and the wave of unemployment that came along with it. It’s important to note that women are frequently hired in sectors that were directly and more strongly impacted by lockdown and social distancing measures (such as flight attendants, hairdressers, and tour operators), and as a result had higher levels of unemployment and a much more delayed re-entry into the workforce.
Even at the very start of the pandemic, women’s labor-force participation was lower than men’s and after its end, women’s re-employment has been significantly slower than men with lower recruitment rates and delayed promotions to executive positions. There is also an indication that among women who have worked throughout the pandemic, some have significantly lowered their working hours more often than men, and some have refused promotions and leadership roles.
As a result of the pandemic another generation of women must wait longer for gender parity as an extra 36 years are added to the time remaining to close the gender gap the WEF Global Gender Gap Report 2021 found. While gender gaps in education and health are nearly closed, the economic gap is expected to take another 267.6 years to close and the political gender gap is expected to take 145.5 years to close, compared to 95 years in the 2020 edition of the report, an increase of over 50%.
The COVID-19 crisis put governments, development organizations, and communities under unprecedented strain. While labor force participation and employment rates in certain economies recovered over the duration of 2020, even a transient exclusion from the workforce may have long-term consequences for economic potential for both men and women, resulting in a sustained effect on employment rates, especially for women.
“While we work urgently to respond, we must not lose sight of our ultimate goal of gender equality. Instead, we should make it part of our overall effort to tackle these unprecedented challenges and come out stronger”.
(Bossoutrot Sylvie, World Bank 2020)
The WEF has committed to a build back better agenda and the themes from the World Bank are echoed by the manging director of the WEF, Saadia Zahidi:
“The pandemic has fundamentally impacted gender equality in both the workplace and the home, rolling back years of progress. If we want a dynamic future economy, it is vital for women to be represented in the jobs of tomorrow. …. This is the moment to embed gender parity by design into the recovery”.
Throughout 2022, as the job market recovered, LinkedIn data showed that women were being hired at a slower rate in multiple industries. They were also less likely to be hired for leadership roles, resulting in a reversal of up to two years’ progress. Sectors with historically low representation of women are also those with fast-growing “jobs of tomorrow.” In cloud computing, for example, women make up 14% of the workforce; in engineering, 20%; and in data and artificial intelligence, 32%; however women do outnumber men in two fast-growing job clusters, “content production” and “people and culture.”
Length of Time to Achieve Full Gender Parity
Despite the current numbers, there is a reason to remain hopeful as overall, the gender gap had been reduced globally by 68.1% by 2022. Given the numbers, reaching a state of full parity will take around 132 years; a four-year improvement over the 2021 assessment that calculated 136 years between us and full gender parity. Nevertheless, it does not compensate for the generational loss that took place between 2020 and 2021 as the gender gap was expected to close within 100 years based on trends prior to 2020.
Based on the changes in the global average scores for every subindex, we can see that some sectors are advancing more than others. While it will take 155 years to close the Political Empowerment gap between men and women and 151 years to close the Economic Participation and Opportunity gender gap, the gender parity in the Educational Attainment sector will hopefully be achieved in 22 years at current rates of progress. The time to close the gender gap in health and survival leaves a large question mark, as progress toward parity has stalled.
