Report Stresses Need for Bold Actions for Gender Equality at Work

By virtually every global measure, women are more economically excluded than
men, according to Gender at Work. Trends suggest women’s labor force
participation worldwide over the last two decades has stagnated, dropping from
57 to 55 percent globally. This is despite accumulating
evidence that jobs benefit women, families, businesses, and communities.

“We know that reducing gender gaps in the world of work can yield broad
development dividends: improving child health and education, enhancing poverty
reduction, and catalyzing productivity,” World
Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said. “This agenda
is urgent. Failure to act represents a huge missed opportunity. Progress so far
has been too little and too slow.”

“Today, many more girls are going to school and living longer, healthier
lives than 30 or even 10 years ago. But this has not translated into broader
gains,” Kim said. “Too many women still lack basic freedoms and
opportunities and face huge inequalities in the world of work.”

The report says since women face multiple constraints to jobs, starting
early and extending throughout their lives, progressive, broad-based, and
coordinated policy action is needed to close gender gaps. A companion to the 2013
World Development Report on jobs, it says options should include
mainstreaming gender equality into jobs and growth strategies, reforming legal
systems, and engaging the private sector in innovative solutions to promote
gender equality.

It also says social norms can exacerbate the deprivation and constraints
women face. Nearly four in 10 people globally—close to one half in developing
countries—agree that when jobs are scarce, men are more entitled to them than
women. Common constraints faced by the most disadvantaged women include lack of
mobility, time, and skills, exposure to violence, and the absence of basic
legal rights.

“Poor women in particular are likely to confront multiple, overlapping
constraints,” World Bank Group Gender and Development Director Jeni Klugman,
co–author of the report with Matthew Morton, said. “Leveling the
playing field and unleashing their economic potential could be a game-changer
in tackling extreme poverty.”

In Latin America and the Caribbean, women’s labor force participation has
risen by 35 percent since 1990. Analysis by the World Bank Group has found that
in 2010, extreme poverty would have been 30 percent higher and average income
inequality 28 percent higher, were it not for women’s increased income through
increased labor earnings, access to pensions, and labor force participation
from 2000-2010.

Country-level diagnostics are vital to help governments in determining the
best policies and more involvement by the private sector—by far the largest
source of jobs—is critical, the report says. The private sector can lead the
way by creating family-friendly working environment and policies, attracting
women into non-traditional roles and sectors, and reviewing human resource
policies and systems for addressing discrimination and harassment. And more
investment is needed to fill major gaps in data and knowledge.

To advance gender equality at work, the report recommends governments target
actions that cover a woman’s life cycle—saying interventions that focus only on
women of productive age start too late and end too early. Biases can begin very
early in life, sometimes in subtle ways, making it ultimately difficult and
costly to resolve inequality.

Gender at Work recommends a range of policies for governments to
consider over a woman’s lifetime:

• During childhood and youth, policies can tackle
  inequalities through education and training, such as incentives for girls
  to attend school. 
• For women of productive age, actions to be considered
  include eliminating restrictions in labor and employment; allowing and
  encouraging women’s ownership and joint-titling of land; and enforcing
  equitable inheritance laws. Other strategies include family-friendly leave
  and flexibility policies, affordable childcare and early child development
  programs, and infrastructure development to reduce burdens on women’s time
  for household and care work. Equal access to assets and financial services
  are vital. Addressing constraints outside the formal sector is particularly
  important in low-income countries, since most people—and more so women—do
  not work for wages and salaries. 
• For older women, governments can support equitable old-age labor
  regulations combined with appropriate social protection. Retirement and
  pension ages for men and women should be equal and targeted programs can
  upgrade skills among older women willing and able to work, while pension
  policies can provide protection without discouraging women’s work. 

The report warns that ageing populations in the developing world will become
increasingly important for governments to consider. Through 2050, the old-age
dependency ratio in developing countries is expected to soar by 144 percent,
during which time the child dependency ratio is projected to fall by 20
percent, altering the nature of the care burden in families and societies.

“Today only half of women’s productive potential is being utilized
globally. This is a waste, since gender equality in the world of work is a win-win
for development and for business. The commitment must begin with fostering
girls’ and boys’ skills and aspirations equally from their early years, so it
stays with them long enough that they and future generations enjoy a more
equitable and prosperous world,” Klugman said.

The International
Labor Organization estimates almost half of women’s productive potential
globally is unutilized compared to 22 percent of men’s. Closing these gender
gaps could yield enormous dividends for development: A
Goldman Sachs study finds that narrowing gender gaps in em­ployment
could push per capita income in emerging markets up to 14 percent higher by
2020.