Women grossly under-represented at the workplace, says report

The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 by World Economic Forum indicates that the gender gap, in terms of economic participation, will take 257 years to close. This is compared to 202 years in the 2019 report.

The report indicates that although education attainment as well as health and survival enjoy much closer to parity (96.1 per cent and 95.7 per cent respectively), economic participation and opportunity still remains an important area of concern.

“This is the only dimension where progress has regressed and a deteriorating situation forcing gender parity to a lowly 57.8 per cent, which in time represents a massive 257 years before gender parity can be achieved,” the report says.

The report benchmarked 153 countries on their progress towards gender parity in four dimensions namely economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival; and political empowerment.

FORMAL SECTOR

Locally, a study conducted by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) in 2018 revealed that women occupy only a third in formal employment.

The study indicated that 880,000 women worked in the formal sector compared to 1.68 million men in 2016, a 65.6 per cent difference.

Women with wage employment in agriculture stood at 112,000 compared to 225,000 men while those in wage employment in manufacturing stood at 49,000 and 252,000 for women and men respectively.

Women in wage employment in wholesale sectors stood at 54,000 compared to 186,000 men. Those in wage employment in public administration stood at 83,000 and 148,000 for women and men respectively.

Globally, only 55 per cent of women (aged 15-64) are engaged in the labour market as opposed to 78 per cent of men.

Three primary reasons hindering women economic participation include women having greater representation in roles that are being automated and not having enough women entering professions where wage growth is the most pronounce like technology.

The perennial problem of insufficient care infrastructure and access to capital among women is also named as another reason impending women economic participation.

In political representation, the Global Gender Gap Report indicates that it will take 95 years to close the gender gap.

In 2019, women held 25.2 per cent of parliamentary seats and 21.2 per cent of ministerial positions.

It, however, says that in nine countries, there is no women representation adding that in the past 50 years, 85 states have had no female head of State.

Western Europe has made the most progress on gender parity standing at 76.7 per cent, followed by North America at 72.9 per cent), Latin America and the Caribbean (72.2 per cent), Eastern Europe and Central Asia (71.3 per cent), Sub-Saharan Africa (68.2 per cent), South Asia (66.1 per cent) and the Middle East and North Africa (60.5 per cent).

“The most-improved countries in gender parity were Albania, Ethiopia, Mali, Mexico and Spain. Of the 149 countries ranked, 101 improved their scores on the 2019 index,” the report says.

GENDER PARITY

Additionally, 35 countries have achieved gender parity in education. In healthcare, 48 countries have achieved near-parity and 71 have closed at least 97 per cent of the gap.

The top country for gender parity remained Iceland (for the 11th year running) followed by Norway, Finland, Sweden, Nicaragua, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, Rwanda and Germany respectively.

Countries that had over 33 per cent of women in their companies’ board of directors include: France (43.4 per cent), Iceland (43), Norway (42.1), Sweden (36.3), Italy (34), Finland (32.8), Germany (31.9), Belgium (30.7), Denmark (30.3) and New Zealand (30).

Those countries with more than 20 per cent of women sitting in companies’ boards include Netherlands (29.5), Latvia (28.8), Australia (28.7), United Kingdom (27.2), Canada (25.8), Israel (23.1) and Slovenia (22.6).

Globally, men occupy approximately 80 per cent of board seats and over 13 per cent of companies have an all-male board.

Last year, details emerged that women still lag behind in Kenya’s corporate management, with only 22 per cent representation.

According to a report launched by the Nairobi Securities Exchange, Equileap and New Faces New Voices, of the 60 companies listed on the NSE, only seven are headed by women.

No firm has achieved gender balance at the board, executive, senior management and general workforce levels. Women account for 23 per cent of board members, up from 21 per cent in 2017.

Women in Kenya are banking on the Bridging Bridges Initiative (BBI) report, which contains proposals aimed at guaranteeing gender equality, inclusivity and representation.

National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC) commissioner Priscilla Nyokabi said the initiative favours female gender since it accommodates social and economic rights for women and children.

Maendelo ya Wanawake Chairperson Mrs Rahab Muiu said termed BBI report has made sure that gains for gender equality and empowerment are secured.

BUSINESS LEADERSHIP

Lise Kingo, CEO and Executive Director, UN Global Compact in an article published on March 6, 2020 on GreenBiz termed the economic gender gap as contained in the Global Gender Gap report as a grave injustice and violation of basic human rights principles and a missed opportunity.

“Gender equality is a key accelerator for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Of growing concern is that we are not only stalling, we are also moving backwards, for example when it comes to participation” said Lise.

She said In India for example, it dropped from 30.4 per cent in 1990 to 23.4 per cent in 2019.

Lise added that while the percentage of women in business leadership roles has increased, it’s happening at a snail’s pace.

“Only 27 per cent of managers and leaders are women (ranging from 11 per cent in the Arab States to 39 per cent in the Americas), a figure that has changed very little over the past 30 years. 

To close the economic gender gap, Lise proposes the need to address it through commitment and action.

“From the UN Global Compact and Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) which analyses data from over 2,000 companies that have used the WEPs Gender Gap Analysis Tool shows that while 68 per cent of companies have a leadership commitment to gender equality and over 40 per cent of companies publicly advocate for gender equality, less than 30 per cent of companies include time-bound, measurable goals and targets in the strategy,” she said.

She said accelerating the pace of advancing gender equality in all spheres of society will lead to faster progress towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for SDGs.

“That’s why we cannot sit around waiting 257 years for women’s economic inclusion. We know what to do, and we have all the tools what is our excuse for not having 30 per cent top leadership female representation?” she posed.