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Boosting women’s roles in work and education
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ECONOMIC policymakers around the world are looking for ways to boost growth, with infrastructure investment topping most lists. But, an often-overlooked remedy is to increase the economic participation and advancement of women.
Women account for half of the global labor supply and about 70 percent of the world’s consumption demand.
Yet there remains a long way to go in realizing their economic potential, as the World Economic Forum’s just-released Global Gender Gap Report 2014 confirms.
In many countries, both developed and developing, men and women are at or near parity when it comes to education and health, according to the report, which covers 142 countries and 94 percent of the world’s population. But, girls and women are still blocked from education in many places, sometimes through violence.
Disparities
Moreover, in terms of economic participation and opportunity, women continue to lag behind men by a considerable 15-25 percent even in the most gender-equal societies.
Globally, only about half of working-age women are employed, and they earn three-quarters of that men earn, even when they have the same level of education and are in the same occupation.
Meanwhile, women are over-represented in informal, temporary, and part-time jobs, most of which are low-productivity positions with low pay, no benefits, and limited opportunities for advancement. Based on the rate of progress over the last nine years, it will take another 81 years to close the world’s economic gender gap and unlock the associated economic benefits.
By one estimate, women hold about 24 percent of top management positions globally, with comparable figures across regions and development levels.
A recent study by the Credit Suisse Research Institute (CSRI) of 3,000 companies in diverse sectors and countries, however, yields a more depressing conclusion: women occupy only about 13 percent of top management positions (CEOs and people who report directly to them), on average, with even the highest rate, in North America, amounting to only 15 percent.
Realizing the economic potential of women requires changes in policies, business practices, and attitudes. Developed countries should invest in affordable child care, early childhood education, and parental leave; shift from family to individual taxes; and provide more generous tax credits, benefits, and protections for low-wage and part-time workers.
Concrete steps
Businesses can commit to gender parity by taking several concrete steps.
They can set targets for recruitment and retention levels; initiate affirmative searches to meet those targets; introduce mentorship programs and diversity training to attract, retain, and promote women; and establish transparent salary bands to help track and reduce gender pay gaps.
At the same time, human-resource practices should take account of unconscious biases, risks of stereotyping, and documented gender differences in behavior.
For example, research finds that women tend to be less confident and less likely to negotiate for pay raises and promotions than equally qualified men.
In the words of Klaus Schwab, the WEF’s founder, “Only those economies which have full access to all their talent will remain competitive and will prosper. But, even more important, gender equality is a matter of justice.”
It would be difficult to identify more compelling reasons to accelerate progress toward gender parity.
Laura Tyson is a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, the United States. Copyright: Project Syndicate 1995-2014
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