A Debate Lost And An Agenda Won For Gender Equality

Context: Declining progress towards gender parity and the need for a multi-stakeholder approach.

Key observations from the 2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report

• Becoming more unequal: Confirmed 2016 finding of a decline in progress towards gender parity, and the report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress.
• Job restrictions: 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having same choice of jobs as men.
• Regressive laws: 104 countries have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs.
• Legal gaps: 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
• Job profile and wage gap: Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment like domestic help, agriculture, etc. and always paid less than men (Global gender wage gap is at 24%).
• Disproportionate pandemic impact: Women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns, and problems are compounded by unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education.
• Dismal women’s labour force participation rate (LPFR) in India: Globally, women’s LFPR estimated at 63% (as against 94% for men), but India’s is at a dismal 25%.
• Fall in India’s ranking: India slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic.

Way forward: Gender-sensitive business policies to look into following agendas -

• Cohesive approach: All stakeholders to work together on clear agenda of inclusive economic growth.
• Inculcate learnings from positive business practices: Companies with greater female representation achieved better productivity, customer retention and profitability.
• Frame policies for equal-opportunity employment: Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc., and select candidates solely on merit.
  • E.g. Surveys finds women have better chances of getting job when recruiters are unaware of gender.
• Foster culture of gender sensitivity: Move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion, promote more women to leadership roles and demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in male-dominant roles.
• Deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds: For education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of pyramid.
• Get more women into R&D: A study found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation.
• Break barriers to allow progress: Fix cultural and structural issues by establishing fair and transparent human resource policies.
• Get involved in local communities: To sustain long-term shareholder value, ensuring welfare of communities the businesses exist in.