Why we need a sprint towards gender parity: the Global Gender Gap Report 2024

Saadia Zahidi ,Managing Director, World Economic Forum: It shouldn't take us five generations to get to parity. How do we actually supercharge progress and how do we create a global gender parity sprint?

Robin Pomeroy, host, Radio Davos: Welcome to Radio Davos, the podcast from the World Economic Forum that looks at the biggest challenges and how we might solve them.

This week: the Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap Report has just been released, with detailed findings about the main challenges faced by women, in society, politics and at work. Women are doing well in education - but far less so in the workplace, we ask why.

Saadia Zahidi: Most of the university graduates around the world are actually women. More women coming out of higher education, more women that should technically be ready for the skilled workforce. But what then happens is when you're trying to access the labour market there are various forms of discrimination that prevent women from being able to enter the workforce.

Robin Pomeroy: Forum Managing Director Saadia Zahidi explains how changes in the jobs market, due to new technologies and the green transition, are not benefiting women as much as they should.

Saadia Zahidi: We found that women tended to underestimate the need for digital skills or the need for green skills. And these are some of the areas that will be growing in the future.

Robin Pomeroy: Subscribe to Radio Davos wherever you get your podcasts, or visit wef.ch/podcasts where you will also find our sister programmes, Meet the Leader and Agenda Dialogues.

I’m Robin Pomeroy at the World Economic Forum, and with this look at the findings of the Global Gender Gap Report 2024

Saadia Zahidi: It's going to take 134 years, which roughly translates to five generations, before we get to gender parity.

Robin Pomeroy: This is Radio Davos

The Global Gender Gap Report is an annual survey of the position of women in society around the world, and how they fare compared to men, in things like education, employment and political representation. The new edition has just been published and the headline figure is a calculation that, with the current rate of improvements - slow - it would take 134 years for women to be equal to men.

Beyond that headline though, is a range of fascinating data. You can read the whole thing, and analysis on our website, and for a walk through of the main points, head to our sister podcast Agenda Dialogues where Forum Managing Director Saadia Zahidi is joined by the CEO of LinkedIn and the minister of employment of the Philippines to discuss the report.

Saadia also found a moment to talk to Radio Davos. She spoke to my colleague Kateryna Gordychuck, who started by asking Saadia what is the main finding of this year’s Gender Gap Report.

Saadia Zahidi: So I think what we've seen is that over the 18 years that we've been tracking gender gaps, there really hasn't been that much progress in terms of the speed of change. If anything, that speed of change is starting to slow down.

So now in the latest edition, we find it's going to take 134 years, which roughly translates to five generations before we get to gender parity. And that overall tapering out of the speed of change is very worrying because we should be leaping forward. There are so many different parts of the world where good examples do exist, but it seems that overall, we're not starting to adopt those good examples. And then, of course, there are structural factors that have slowed things down.

Kateryna Gordiychuk: What are the overall trends that we're seeing this year? There are of course, regions that are faring much better in the regions that are going slower. What do you think are some of the significant changes we should take note of?

Saadia Zahidi: So, a few highlights. Overall, it might take 134 years, to close the gender gap, but then we can look specifically at different areas.

So it's hard to define it in health, how long it will take, because the progress is almost minimal and sometimes it tends to reverse, but overall, more than 95% of that health gap has been closed.

Similarly, when it comes to education, a very large set of that gap has been closed, over 95%. But, at the same time, it will still take us another 20 years, another two decades before we can fully close that education gender gap.

Next, if you look at economic participation, this is where it may take 152 years. So a very long way to go.

And then finally, when it comes to political empowerment, it's 169 years to close that gap. And we're starting from a very low base when it comes to political empowerment, with only about 22% of that gender gap having been closed. Whereas at least when it comes to economic participation, it's over 68% of the gap has been closed.

Kateryna Gordiychuk: Why is there such a big gap between educational attainment? So we seem to be getting girls educated, but then it's really hard for them to be skilled and enter the workforce. Where is the barrier there?

Saadia Zahidi: So there's there's a lot that's happening there.

You know, for most countries in the world, they have not just invested in girls' education in primary and secondary schools, but most of the university graduates around the world are actually women.

So you're having, more women coming out of higher education, more women that should technically be ready for the skilled workforce. But what then happens is when you're trying to access the labour market, in some cases, there is there are various forms of discrimination that prevent women from being able to enter the workforce.

There are organisations that will have a large intake at the entry level, but then they don't necessarily have mechanisms in place to, focus on gender equal promotions, gender equal retention, gender equal movement into the leadership levels.

Some have policies around pay gaps, but then they don't necessarily enforce those policies around pay gap.

So that's roughly what's happening inside organisations. But there are additional reasons. So for example, in most countries in the world the care infrastructure is not a very good one. And it still tends to be women that provide childcare and elder care. And if they do not have access to wider social security systems, wider social protection systems and childcare and elder care systems, then that burden of care falls on women and they're unable to enter paid work.

And then there's a third reason, which is more of an emerging reason. And that has to do with technological change. And of course, we've seen so much happening in the world of work when it comes to technology and its integration, but it has some very specific gender dynamics.

So one is, that the type of roles that are being disrupted due to technology tend to be the type of roles that are female dominated. So for example, in customer service roles or administrative assistants, these are roles that have tended to employ a lot of women in the past. And they also happen to be roles that are going to be going through massive disruption if they're not already.

A second element is that the types of roles that are growing. So, for example, we looked at AI engineers in our partnership with LinkedIn this year. AI engineers, have doubled in number when it comes to the female workforce between 2016 and today. But in that very same period, men have always been double that number compared to women.

So the roles that are going to be growing the most in the future and the roles that are, frankly, going to be shaping our economies and societies, those tend not to have such a large pipeline of women going in.

So, on both those sides of the equation, when it comes to technological change, we need to be looking a lot more at how to take more specific and targeted actions.

Kateryna Gordiychuk: That is such a striking example that you gave about women not necessarily being in those areas where skills are changing, or, rather, being affected by the change of skills. What can be done to, make sure that women are included in the reskilling revolution more?

Saadia Zahidi: So there's a few different things. I think one element is that when reskilling and upskilling programs are put in place, they need to take a gender lens into account. So, for example, if women are the ones that have the higher burden of care, then they are by necessity going to have less time available for reskilling and upskilling programmes. So there has to be a little bit more of a targeted focus to ensure that they don't end up being disrupted more from their current roles than, for example, men are.

So some specific targeted measures for those that are still on the job but need that support.

A second element is when those workers are not necessarily in the job anymore, or are searching for a reskilling and upskilling that can help them transition into their next role. That also requires a much, much more customised focus from governments to ensure that women are actually looking at the right kinds of roles.

So we partnered with Coursera this year in the report, and we found that women tended to underestimate the need for digital skills or the need for green skills. And these are some of the areas that will be growing in the future. So again, there needs to be a more targeted focus to ensure that women are part of that reskilling revolution.

And then there's the third element, which is we have to ensure that there's more of a pipeline of women that is going into STEM related roles - science, technology, engineering and maths - and ensuring that that pipeline is developed very early on. So reaching back into high schools and colleges and universities and then ensuring that the employers for these roles are also taking into account, that it's not just about getting women into the entry level, but it's ensuring that they're making it all the way through to leadership roles.

Kateryna Gordiychuk: So this was economic participation and opportunity that we just talked about. But we also have political empowerment, and that's the area that's still quite low. But it's growing and it's actually growing one of the fastest if not the fastest, I believe. Howdo we make sure that, a lot of areas around the world, a lot of regions that don't see this progress there, can improve? And what can you say about political empowerment overall?

Saadia Zahidi: So where we stand at the moment, we're sort of on the cusp of beginning to get to that critical mass.

So if you look at women in local government, about 35% of those roles are occupied by women. When you look at parliaments, we're at a global all time high of 33%, but that is still only 33%. That's not 50%. It's not representing half the planet.

And then when it comes to ministerial level positions, that's just over 24% that are occupied by women.

And then finally, when it comes to the head of state role in most countries around the world over the last half century or so, that's under 15% of those years that have been occupied by women.

So overall, we see the same kind of hierarchical gap when it comes to some of these roles in politics. But overall, we're simply not looking at gender equal representation.

Now, 2024 and 2025 present an interesting opportunity for the world. They're going to be about 3 billion people going to elections of some form or the other, whether local ones or national ones. In nearly 60 countries in the world, we're going to see some form of, popular decisions around who their new leadership is going to be.

So I think there's a possibility of change. I don't think it's about counting only on this year and next year, but there needs to be that longer term, consistent development of women in both politics and public service.

Kateryna Gordiychuk: I wanted to also ask you what have been some of the surprises for you that you've seen in this year's report, maybe in the top five or the countries that are actually becoming the economies that are improving the most, like Ecuador and Sierra Leone. There are some new countries that we haven't seen before. What what has surprised you this year?

Saadia Zahidi: I think one very interesting example is Iceland. It's, we're on the 18th report, 18th Gender Gap Report. And for the 15th year in a row, Iceland continues to occupy the number one position, and it remains the only country in the world that has closed over 90% of its gender gap. So there is definitely, it's a small country which values human capital, and that is where there's been a lot of investment that has gone into health and education, but also ensuring that economic participation and political empowerment are gender equal.

And perhaps another example to look at is, because we do not look at, the level of income of a country, we actually look at how equitably are the resources and opportunities in that country being distributed between women and men, there are a number of emerging markets beyond Europe that also make it into the top ten.

So, for example, Nicaragua and Namibia, these are countries that have made it into top ten.

And then when you look at the highest climbers, very often, it's because, countries have more women coming into parliamentary roles or more women coming into ministerial roles, and these are things that really can change very, very quickly when it comes to the economic, participation, it tends not to lead to very big jumps.

In terms of the fastest movers, there can be jumps when it comes to closing pay gaps. There can be jumps when it comes to the leadership positions. But labour force participation data tends to move quite slowly. And so that usually isn't the cause for a country moving ahead very quickly.

Kateryna Gordiychuk: Even so, do you think there's something we can learn from the fastest movers? It doesn't mean that they've achieved gender parity, but they're definitely on track to get there.

Saadia Zahidi: I think leadership representation really matters, and these are things that can change very, very quickly.

So when it comes to corporate leadership or when it comes to political leadership, the role model effect that that ends up creating for generations of women that are in entry level roles or that are younger women as a part of that population, who then see female role models and leadership positions, regardless of the decisions that those people take, or regardless of how their performance is assessed, but simply the fact of seeing women in leadership roles, that can be a big game changer.

Kateryna Gordiychuk: For anybody who might be looking at the report in the coming days, what kind of message would you like to give? Where would you like them to, what page to open, where to look to for more information or for more insight?

Saadia Zahidi: So I think it's always very interesting to look at one's own country and to understand what the picture is like. But it's also very interesting to look at the best practices, to look at who are the countries that are near the top.How are they changing? Who are the countries that are doing particularly well on economic participation? What are the countries that are doing particularly well when it comes to, for example, women in ministerial roles? So there's a lot of very interesting examples there.

But what we're really calling for at the World Economic Forum is that it shouldn't take us five generations to get to parity. How do we actually supercharge progress and how do we create a global gender parity sprint? That is a new initiative that we have launched this year, and we're giving ourselves until 2030 to work with some of the largest businesses and some of the governments around the world to focus on the actions that can accelerate change.

And the idea is let's accelerate as much as we can by 2030. By working with governments around the world on policy measures, by working with businesses around the world to integrate much more women into their workforces, retain them, promote them, but also work through their supply chains and together that collective effort for it to also share with each other what those best practices are and help share those lighthouses with the rest of the world. And that hopefully can provide a boost towards parity.

Kateryna Gordiychuk: I hope we can see the results of that in the next Gender Gap Report.

Saadia Zahidi: Thank you very much.

Kateryna Gordiychuk: Thank you Saadia.

Robin Pomeroy: Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the World Economic Forum.

You can read the Gender Gap Report 2024 on our website - links in the show notes - and check out our sister podcasts, Agenda Dialogues, which has a whole episode on the report, and Meet the Leader - the latest edition of that talks about the skills gap in cybersecurity, with a senior executive from cyber and analytics company Splunk.

Find those wherever you listen to podcasts - please subscribe so you never miss an episode -- or at wef.ch/podcasts.

This episode of Radio Davos was presented by me, Robin Pomeroy, with reporting by Kateryna Gordychuck. Studio production was by Taz Kelleher.

We will be back very soon, with episodes related to the Forum’s upcoming annual meeting held in China, but for now thanks to you for listening and goodbye.