According to the latest Gender Social Norms Index released by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), there is no country in the world that has gender equality. The index that measures how social beliefs obstruct gender equality in areas like politics, work, and education contains data from 75 countries and covers over 80 per cent of the world’s population.
The year 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing+25) – the most visionary agenda on women’s empowerment so far. In order to commemorate this and work towards achieving gender equality, it is important to first assess the world view regarding women in leadership.
Gender inequality across the world
According to the Gender Social Norms Index, despite decades of progress closing the equality gap between men and women, close to 90 % of men and women hold some sort of bias against women. Substantiating that is the fact that almost half of the world’s men and women feel that men make better political leaders, better business executives and that they have more right to a job when jobs are scarce.
While men and women vote at similar rates, only 24 % of parliamentary seats worldwide are held by women and there are only 10 female heads of government out of a possible 193. Additionally, women in the labour market are paid less than men and are much less likely to be in senior positions – less than 6 per cent of CEOs in S&P 500 companies are women. And while women work more hours than men, this work is more likely to be unpaid care work.
Working towards gender-equal future
The world has come a long way in recent decades to ensure that women have the same access to life’s basic needs as men. It has reached parity in primary school enrolment and reduced maternal mortality by 45 per cent since the year 1990. However, gender gaps are still all too obvious in other areas, particularly those that challenge power relations and are most influential in actually achieving true equality.
In order to alter this, UNDP is calling on governments and institutions to use a new generation of policies to change these discriminatory beliefs and practices through education, and by raising awareness and changing incentives. For instance, taxes must be used to incentivize fairly sharing child-care responsibilities, or by encouraging women and girls to enter traditionally male-dominated sectors such as the armed forces and information technology.
CSR initiatives for encouraging Girls in STEM
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The careers in STEM are highly dominated by men. These are core fields on which all of the devices needed to reach an evolved future are based. In order to bridge the gender gap in these fields, IBM has launched a CSR initiative called ‘STEM for Girls’. The initiative is aimed at improving education-to-work and career pathways for girls studying in government schools. It includes training in digital literacy, coding and technology skills – all with an aim to enable girls’ empowerment and increase their interest in STEM education and careers.
Microsoft also has a similar program to encourage girls to pursue a career in STEM.
Covestro has collaborated with g4g (greenlight for girls), an NGO based in Belgium to conduct a series of STEM workshops across India for girls. Over 100 girls in the age group of 10 to 15 years participated from different schools wherein they conducted simple science experiments that stimulated their curiosity and interest in science.
P&G’s anti-discriminatory policy for shared child-caring
P&G has introduced a Share the Care parental leave policy for its global workforce, making child caregiving unbiased based on gender or sexual orientation. The company allows up to eight weeks paid leave within 18 months of the child’s birth or adoption and is offered to new fathers and non-birth parents in same-sex couples.
