Pro Mujer Inc.

07/18/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 07/18/2024 22:25

Gender focus is crucial to achieving real social change

Gender focus is crucial to achieving real social change

By | Carmen Correa, Pro Mujer CEO

None of the people who are reading this today will get to live in a world with gender parity. Neither their daughters, nor their granddaughters or grandsons. One would have to wait at least five generations-according to the latest Global Gender Gap Reportpublished by the World Economic Forum (WEF) last June-for women and men to have equal access and participation in social, economic, and political fields.

Since 2006, when the WEF began measuring statistics related to the gender gap, there have been many changes, and although no country has achieved full parity, 97% of those included in this year's edition have closed more than 60% of their gender gaps. Today, the global gender gap is closed at 68.5%.

Yet, on a macro scale, this hasn't made much of a difference. The global gender gap has only closed by 0.1% in the last year, the same rate since 2006. The numbers are clear, but the outlook remains murky. Despite the effort, humanity has not achieved substantial changes year over year, and ongoing crises erode the gains made. It is no secret that the most vulnerable populations are the hardest hit during turbulent times.

The fact that gender parity is one of the most overlooked issues in social transformation efforts creates a paradox that is difficult to resolve. Excluding women and girls from economic and social development not only affects their future, but also that of the planet, and reduces our ability to face current and future challenges.

It even reduces our ability to recover from crises: A LinkedIn study cited in the Report indicates that, although the hiring of women in leadership roles declines in difficult economic conditions, the greater the representation of women in the workforce, the more resilience there is to overcome economic setbacks.

The fact that the political and economic sectors are the ones farthest from closing the gender gap does not make it any easier, as they have the ability to slow down the progress of other sectors. For example, the WEF projections regarding economic growth rates involving women are the lowest in the last 30 years, and it is expected that unemployment will increase especially in weaker economies, a statistic that already disproportionately affects women today. Even in fields that had shown promise in previous reports, such as female leadership in business, the figures deteriorated from 37.5% to 36.4% between 2023 and 2024.

We can either take these facts as discouraging, or as fuel to keep driving our work forward. I choose to do the latter. And what can we do? For starters: Gender equality requires opportunities and resources, not only economic but also intellectual, political, and social. Only a strong movement, a change in mindset that prioritizes collective efforts between government, businesses, and civil society will be able to help us reduce that discouraging number of 150 years and make an equal society possible.

New paradigms such as gender lens investing, the care economy, silver economy, or technology, represent fertile territories for women and other groups that historically have been underrepresented to access more opportunities for personal and professional development, and thus drive the growth of all regions.

If we want to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals that we have set as a society for 2030, it is non-negotiable to redefine what we understand by economy, labor market, and systems in general, so that these become true promoters of everyone's skills, equally, and enable all people to live a dignified and enjoyable life.

At Pro Mujer, we choose to continue working to promote gender equality in Latin America so that, in much less time than we expect, we can say "none of the people reading this can imagine a world without gender parity."

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