by dmm22 | Nov 22, 2022 | Dashboard, Visualization
Women participation in the labor force in numbers
The fight for women empowerment and inclusion in the workspace has been an ongoing fight in our world. Although female participation in the labor force has seen an ongoing increase from 1980 till 2021, however, as per the World Bank Gender Data Portal: “The global labor force participation rate for women is just over 50% compared to 80% for men. Women are less likely to work in formal employment and have fewer opportunities for business expansion or career progression.”
Education as a direct road to employment
There are different opportunities to invest in to further increase this female participation in the labor force on the long run and make sure that women are getting the opportunities they deserve. One important opportunity which has a direct impact on women employment is education as shown in the results from year 2000 onwards. The more women are educated, the higher their chance of inclusion and employment. This is verified through different studies done across countries by IZA Institute of Labor Economics and on Science Direct, which show that “educated women were said to increase their problem solving, life skills, flexibility and openmindness” which in turn had an effect on their increased participation in the workplace. Therefore, to increase labor force participation for women, the focus should also be directed to the countries with the lowest rates which are mostly, as shown in the results in the map, countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.
The road to achieve Gender Equality and increase women inclusion in the workplace
Investing in scholarships and school programs/workshops targeted to women, is a long term solution to increase the global labor force participation rate for women. These scholarships and development programs/workshops should also be targeted towards topics of high impact and high demand in the job market. Later stages can also include legal reforms to achieve gender equality and decrease gender discrimination in the workplace. Therefore, we call all advocates, politicians in donor countries, and international organizations to have action plans in process in countries that need it the most to make sure that we reach SDG #5 by 2030.
by Wassim Radwan | Apr 15, 2022 | Visualization
in 2015, the United Nations Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership. One of those goals is gender equality (i.e., goal #5).
Gender Inequality has been an imperative social issue in India for centuries. India lags behind when it comes to education for women, and this lag hinders a woman’s role in their society. Some symptoms of the problem are:
- The role of women living in a traditional Indian society is to look after the home and children which requires no schooling.
- The Indian society is organized in a way that it is patriarchal i.e., it revolves around the male and the female occupies a negligible role. The sons are considered as assets whereas the daughters are considered as liabilities
- If the family is living in poverty, then the female child is tasked with household chores and taking care of her siblings. Thus, no time nor money is spent on the female child’s education
- If a woman is able to earn money after receiving education, then there is a concern that she will hurt the male ego due to her independence.
According to the above bar chart, the literacy rate of Indian women as a percentage of the total population of women in India in the year 1981 was found to be approximately 25.68%. However, India did not remain idle when faced with such a conundrum. In 2009, they implemented a program called the Saakshar Bharat program that aims to promote and strengthen adult learning, reaching out to those who missed the opportunity to access or complete formal education as well as basic literacy/education. This program involves the government of India acting as a facilitator and resource provider while simultaneously working closely with many local communities in order to design educational programs tailor-made to their specific needs. After the implementation of the program, the literacy rate among Indian women reached 65.78% in 2018.
This result alone proves that the program has been successful in eliciting change for Indian women via education. Therefore, the Indian government should continue offering the program and invest more funds into it to target more local communities within the region.
by Charles Wakim | Apr 15, 2022 | Visualization
Sustainable development goals are set by the United Nations for countries to reach by 2030. And as you’re getting closer and closer to the deadline, I decided to dig deeper into it and check the WDI dataset to see where we stand right now.
One particular goal I looked after, since it’s the easiest to achieve, is gender equality, the fifth goal set by the UN (SDG 5.5.2).
One way to gauge the progress made by the countries in order to reach these goals was so take a look at women’s employment share in senior and middle management. Precisely in the European Union (EU), a rather advanced community when it comes to human rights.
Surprisingly enough, the EU, a utopia of ours (us, Middle Eastern), is not as perfect as we might think. The birthplace of human rights, the nest of gender equality and the one that found the solution for a better living still struggles in achieving perfect gender equality, especially in high positions. And even though we could always argue they’re doing better than us; they’re still not doing enough!
The EU’s average in women’s share of employment in senior and middle management falls around 30%, far away from the 50% target. Even worse, some countries like Italy have their average around 22% without any considerable increase these last few years.
Fortunately, other countries like Latvia reached records of 45% women employment in middle and high management. Even better, this particular country showed a significant increase in numbers in this area between the year 2009 and 2010 due to some regulations taken at that moment without any huge drop afterwards.
Italy could get some inspiration from the Latvian regulations created in order to increase women’s share and middle and senior management and try and fix their low numbers by applying easy to implement solutions and monitor their effectiveness over time.
Once we finish observing Italy, we could use this pilot experiment to try and generalize the process. Then try to implement it in other countries and turn gender inequality in managerial positions to history.
