OECD – The mission of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.

https://www.oecd.org/gender/data/

https://www.oecd.org/gender/ongoingwork/

GENDER EQUALITY

Important steps have already been taken in OECD countries to combat gender inequality but significant disparities remain in educational and occupational choices. The OECD Gender Initiative monitors the progress made on gender equality, through data and analysis, and provides best practices for achieving greater equality. Our work includes the following areas:

Education

• Education at a Glance 2015 also contains a wide range of indicators on gender differences in education.

• The ABC of Gender Equality in Education: Aptitude, Behaviour, Confidence. This 2015 PISA report looks at the factors underlying the gender gap in reading and mathematics and considers what parents, schools and policies can do to narrow these gaps and help all students reach their full potential.

Employment and work-life balance

• Workshop on Improving Opportunities for Women in the United States: Remarks by OECD Secretary-General and Brochure (17 June 2016)

• WorkLife podcast with Willem Adema (OECD) on some specific aspects of family policy, like parental leave and the take-up by fathers (May 2016)

• Work has started in preparation for the 2017 Meeting of the OECD Council at Ministerial Level on progress with the implementation of the OECD Gender Recommendation.

• March 2016: release of policy brief “Parental leave – where are the fathers“. In November 2015 the OECD released a study on Paid Parental Leave: Lessons from OECD Countries and Selected U.S. States.

• Work is under way on the OECD Gender review of Mexico which also focuses on women in public life (see below) and a study focusing on promoting equal sharing in couple families, in co-operation with the German Family ministry. Both these studies will be released in 2016.

• The OECD Employment Outlook 2016 includes an analysis of the labour market position of women in emerging economies.

• Two special chapters of the 2015 OECD Economic Survey of Austria cover gender equality in work, family and life arrangements.

Entrepreneurship

• OECD Report to G7 Leaders on Women and Entrepreneurship – a summary of recent data and policy developments in G7 countries (May 2016)

• Entrepreneurship at a Glance 2015 examines gender differences in self-employment as well as different attitudes towards entrepreneurship and risk-taking when establishing a new business, and includes country notes with indicators on entrepreneurship by gender. Entrepreneurship at a Glance 2016 will be released in July.

• The Missing Entrepreneurs 2015 provides indicators on female entrepreneurship and on barriers to it. The study also examines the role of coaching, mentoring and other policies to support entrepreneurship among women and other under-represented groups.

• Inclusive Business Creation: Good Practice Compendium will appear in summer 2016 and explores a number of specific public policy actions to support women entrepreneurs in areas such as education and training, role models, microfinance and business counselling.

Public governance

• On 14 December 2015 the OECD Council adopted the Recommendation on Gender Equality in Public Life which is geared towards effective implementation of gender equality and mainstreaming initiatives in public life, and enhancing women’s equal access to public leadership opportunities such as in parliaments, the executive, judiciary and public administrations. Launch: at the OECD on 8 March 2016.

• Work is underway on the OECD Gender review of Mexico, a UNDP-OECD Pilot Project in Indonesia on Gender Equality in Public Life, and a project on strengthening women’s access to justice in Morocco.

OECD Regional Initiatives on Governance and Competitiveness

• The Women in Parliaments Global Summit 2016 was held in Amman (Jordan) on 4-6 May 2016. This Summit, co-organised with the OECD, was first of its kind to be held in a Middle East North African (MENA) country and brought together female Parliamentarians from all over the world.
• A high-level conference on “Women in Public Life: From Policies to Impact” was held in Bahrain 8-10 December under the patronage of Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka Bint Ibrahim Al-Khalifa.

• On March 2015, the findings of the OECD-CAWTAR report Women in Public Life: Gender, Law and Policy in the Middle East and North Africa were presented at the High-Level Conference Women in Public Life in the Middle East and North Africa.

• The OECD hosts since 2009 the OECD-MENA Women’s Business Forum, a wide network of stakeholders which works in favour of women’s entrepreneurship through conferences and capacity building, both in Paris and in countries of the MENA region.

• The OECD leads an innovative project to explore how the legal environment influences women’s access to the economy in 6 MENA countries (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia). Building on local research and national and international consultations, a report on “Supporting women as economic actors during the transition period” will be released to raise awareness of the economic and social returns of increasing women’s employmentand entrepreneurship.

• The new OECD Regional Southeast Asia Gender Initiative held its first meeting on gender in Business and Public life on 24 March 2015 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Development

• ‌The OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Network on Gender Equality, GENDERNET is an internationally recognised source of authoritative data and analysis on official development assistance in support of gender equality and women’s rights.

• Ahead of COP21 in Paris (December 2015), the GENDERNET published Making climate finance work for women: Overview of the integration of gender equality in aid to climate change a new brief which assesses how well bilateral donors are integrating gender equality into their aid to climate change.

• Released in 2015, Aid in support of gender equality and women’s rights in fragile contexts provides an overview of OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members’ aid that supports gender equality in fragile states and economies.

• The OECD Development Centre’s  Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) measures discrimination against women in social institutions (formal and informal laws, social norms, and practices) across 160 countries. See research paper “Does gender discrimination in social institutions matter for long-term growth?” (March 2016)

• In 2015 the SIGI Uganda country study was launched providing policymakers with the first sub-national database on discrimination against women in social institutions.

• The first SIGI regional report for Europe and Central Asia shows that while the region has made advances in women’s rights, gender gaps in unpaid care work and employment outcomes remain.
• Wikigender now includes a new strong focus on the SDGs, gender statistics and leading trends in gender and development. The online collaborative platform is also available in French, making it the only one of its kind for the Francophone community.

Financial Education

• The OECD is coordinating a new exercise to measure financial literacy across men and women in over 20 countries and economies around the world. Results will be released in the second half of 2016.

• The PISA Volume VI: Students and Money (Volume VI), Financial Literacy Skills for the 21^st Century report analyses gender differences in financial literacy among 15-year-old students.

Health

• A focus on Health expenditure by disease, age and gender was released in April 2016. According to new data from Czech Republic, Korea and the Netherlands, women account for 56% of health spending, with higher expenditure on mental health and musculosketal conditions.
• Health at a Glance 2015 presents a wide range of indicators on gender differences in health, including in life expectancy, specific causes of death (including cardiovascular diseases and cancer), self-reported health status, smoking and obesity.

• Tackling Harmful Alcohol Use looks at the gender gap and socioeconomic gap in risky drinking that affects employment, productivity and wages: less educated and lower socioeconomic status men as well as more educated and higher socioeconomic status women are more likely to have risky drinking behaviours

Science

• The Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2015 contains new indicators on women in science and technology including on gender differences in holding doctorates in science areas and employment as researchers.

Taxation

• Taxing Wages 2016 presents in-depth analysis and a wide range of indicators on “measuring the tax wedge on second earners” (April 2016).

• In September 2016 Taxation & Skills will be released which will focus on the financial incentives for men and women to invest in skills over the lifecycle, and on how tax systems can do more to encourage skills investment.

Well-Being

• The OECD Better Life Index integrates information on gender inequality across its twelve domains of well-being.

• A working paper to be released in 2016 will illustrate the incidence of gender-based Violence against Women and will evaluate the comparability of information drawn from different international surveys