Closing the gender gap is a business case
Posted on July 07, 2020 | Darys Estrella
According to the report of the Global Gender Gap 2015 of the World Economic Forum, women represent half of the population that can work and 68% of the world's consumer demand. Women have enormous potential to stimulate the countries' economies, which are often diminished by the lack of access to job opportunities and to equitable remuneration...
According to the report of the Global Gender Gap[1] 2015 of the World Economic Forum, women represent half of the population that can work and 68% of the world's consumer demand. Women have enormous potential to stimulate the countries' economies, which are often diminished by the lack of access to job opportunities and to equitable remuneration. It is a fact that globally, women occupy fewer managerial positions in companies, they also have less access to financial products, which impedes their income independence, despite the fact that more women than men manage to graduate from a university career. . In the political sphere, female representation in key positions of public office is low, although its participation trend is growing.
On economic empowerment, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development[2] (OECD), in a study carried out in 2014, determined that when the number of employed women increases, the economies of the countries grow. The economic empowerment of women is good business. Businesses benefit greatly by increasing opportunities for leadership positions for women, something that has been shown to increase organizational effectiveness.
Furthermore, data on consumption patterns in various countries indicate that women who earn income spend 90% of their income on the home and the family compared to only 35% for men.
The differences in numbers:
- The world of work: According to data from the International Labor Organization [3] (ILO, 2016), during the last 20 years some 50 million women have joined the economically active population (EAP) of Latin America and the Caribbean , of which 47.8% are working in informal conditions, which usually implies low wages and precarious working conditions, with the unemployment rate of women being 40% higher than that of men. Women hold only 25% of administrative and managerial positions in the business world and 22% of public positions by popular election.
- Salary gap: Globally, women earn 24% less than men. For Latin America and the Caribbean, according to data provided by ECLAC [4], in recent years this gap has decreased, but on average women's wages continue to be 84% of what a man earns. I remind you that we are in 2016. This is unacceptable.
- Family Responsibility: Family responsibilities are generally not equally distributed either. Women spend an average of 1 to 3 hours more than men on housework and more than twice the daily time that men take care of the family (sons and daughters, older adults or sick people). It is women who in a greater percentage have to interrupt or give up their professional life to dedicate themselves to taking care of the family.
- Land tenure: As far as land tenure is concerned, only 20% of women worldwide own land.
You have to change the rules of the game, and give women the rightful participation. For this it is necessary to apply changes in three fundamental axes:
- Provide more and better job opportunities that achieve the integration of a greater percentage of women in the formal sector of the economy, in the same way the business and political sphere.
- Equalize the conditions of economic income by closing the wage gap between men and women, which is an essential requirement to achieve their economic autonomy and to achieve gender equality.
- Reduce and evenly distribute the burden of unpaid care work, establishing participatory policies and mechanisms that allow women to have access to a better balance between family and work life.
In summary, the statistics speak for themselves. Closing the gender gap is the right thing to do, not because it sounds nice, but because it makes businesses more competitive. It is a real fact that those companies where there are women in key positions perform better.
[1] The Global Gender Gap Index Results In 2015
[2] ILO, IMF, OECD, WBG Achieving stronger growth by promoting a more gender balanced economy G20