The gender gap in the world today.

The gender gap between men and women in the United States has narrowed, compared with a year ago.  That is the good news!

The index, published by the World Economic Forum, measures women’s parity with men in 130 countries, by calculating the gap along four areas of inequality:  economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment and health and survival.  Thus, a country with a 100% figure means that there is no difference in that country between men and women on these four measures (rather an odd way to present the data!).  

The improvement this year in the position of the US is due to the higher number of women in positions of political power. The other improvement in the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />US was in the income gap and the total earnings for women compared with men. 

The bad news is that the United States is still way down the scale at 27!  Last year, it came in at 31!  The US glass ceiling may be cracked but it is not yet broken! So much for the American Dream for women!

Its rating is well below Germany (11), the UK (13), and Spain (17).  Even in Latvia (10), Sri Lanka (12), and France (15) the gender gap is considerably smaller!

As usual, the Nordic countries are in the top four places.  Norway is in first place, scoring 82.45 per cent in the table. Finland, Sweden and Iceland came in next. This has been so for many years.  I remember a report of at least ten years ago which reported there were fewer barriers in the Nordic countries to women’s advancement.

At the other end of the scale, Saudi Arabia, Chad and Yemen have the least equality between the sexes.   Some Arab countries have improved their ratings, thanks to improved rates of literacy, while Jordan and the United Emirates have improved their positions through women’s greater political power.  A UN report earlier this year pointed out that women in Saudi Arabia are victims of systematic discrimination across all aspects of social life.  A woman is not allowed, for example, to be in the company of any man not in her immediate family.
 
China’s position (57) has improved by 17 places compared to last year driven by (a narrowing of the gaps in education, economic and political participation).

In general, women have progressed towards greater parity.  The gaps in education, empowerment and economic participation have narrowed.  But the gap in health has widened.

Professor Laura Tyson from the University of California at Berkeley (one of the Report’s writers), says:

"Our work shows a strong correlation between competitiveness and the gender gap scores. While this does not imply causality, the possible theoretical underpinnings of this link are clear: countries that do not fully capitalise effectively on one-half of their human resources run the risk of undermining their competitive potential. We hope to highlight the economic incentive behind empowering women, in addition to promoting equality as a basic human right."

It was Larry Summers, while Chief Economist at the World Bank, in 1992, who argued in front of the world's Finance Ministers that the highest return on investment they could make in their economies was to educate girls. This was in spite of his later (asnd now notorious) 2005 memo (while at Harvard) in which he explained his views to account for the difference in numbers of men and women in high end science and engineering jobs.  Because he is such a hard nosed economist, his work on girls' education has become a focus for development experts (and not just a topic in education ministries or ‘right-on’ debates), and in financial ministries worldwide.

Earlier this year (October?), the Financial Times did an interesting piece on its funding of girls' education throughout the world, with case studies showing the fund's impact.

There is, however, still a long way to go, as today’s Report points out.

 Comment:

I have not yet read the complete report so I do not know how much data the commentators had across each nation.  I doubt very much, for example, whether they had sufficient information on the quality (as opposed to the number of years) of education.  I suspect that girls who had a private education had better opportunities than girls in public (especially rural) schools.  Then again, I would like to know what data was available in countries where many women had to go abroad in search of work and how that affected the results. 

Overall, I suspect that social class background was a critical variable especially in countries in the Global South.

Also, I think cultural issues might be critical but are not easy to measure.  I am surprised for example that Sri Lanka rates so highly.  There are a number of 'passive' variables in South Asia that may well limit the horizons of girls especially in rural areas (social contacts with successful women, encouragement at school, level of independence, equal pay for work of equal value).  I hope to look in more detail at the results.

Post script:  I have since looked at the report in detail.  I am correct in saying that the report relies on data published mainly by organisations such as the Interenational Labour Office etc, and does not give the more detailed comparisons that I argue above is necessary!

Also, the difference in the figures between the top thirty is miniscule.  The UK comes in at 13 with a score of 74%, while the US comes in at way down to 27, with a score of 72%!! 

Beware of statistics!