}
We cannot or fully equitably recover from this pandemic unless we recognise what this graph and others are telling us: Woman around the world are still suffering disproportionately. And if we dont invest now- In child care, in reducing violence and harassment and in woman led-business- they could get left behind.
It's critical that we put woman at the center of the recovery. Last year, the word “shecession” was coined to describe what was happening to the global economy. Women were nearly twice as likely as men to lose their jobs. Now, new data from the International Labor Organization (ILO) show that, based on current trends, the recovery is sexist, too.
Men has a group have already regained all the jobs they lost, but woman are still losing theirs. In fact, 2 million more women are expected to leave the workforce this year, adding to the 13 million in 2020.
Our foundation has been working with data partners to understand how the pandemic has affected women specifically. The upshot is this: gender equality is an economic necessity. One of the main reasons economies were so fragile in the first place was that women were marginalized. And those economies will never bounce back if their leaders continue to marginalize women.
In 1995, at the Beijing Conference on Women, thousands of activists who’d been working tirelessly for equality came together to declare unequivocally that “women’s rights are human rights.” At that conference, world leaders pledge to “take all necessary measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women.” But they didn’t follow up with nearly enough money or new policies, so progress has been incremental at best, and here we are again, 26 years later.
From June 30 to July 2, leaders from all walks of life are meeting in Paris as part of the generation equality forum to focus on fixing this problem and delivering on the promises made in Beijing. The goal is to get experts, grassroots activists, government officials, and business leaders to work together and move from words about gender equality to concrete actions that will make it a reality.
Implementing cash transfer programs could lift 100 million women out of poverty. Providing access to childcare for women who don’t have it could mean a $3 trillion increase in global GDP.
The recession and the early trends of the recovery make the case for action perfectly clear: women face structural barriers that have made them more vulnerable to the pandemic’s impacts – and eliminating these barriers will jumpstart the recovery.
For example, jobs that women tend to do more than men—restaurant server, flight attendant, hotel worker—were squeezed particularly hard by social distancing. Women already did about three quarters of the cleaning, cooking, child-rearing—the unpaid work that, according to economists, makes all paid work possible—and with schools closed and everyone staying closer to home, there’s more demand for caregiving than ever. At the same time, disruptions to health systems put important services like family planning and prenatal care out of reach for millions of women.
Lastly, There are 225 COVID-19 task forces in 137 countries, but only 24% of the people serving on them are women. The only way to choose a different future is to guarantee that women are in the rooms where pivotal decisions get made.
When I think of what the Generation Equality Forum can accomplish, I try to think about the impact it can have on women’s lives. After all, that’s what every single data point represents: a woman who is fighting for a better future. As long as I’ve been doing this work, meeting women and hearing from them about their aspirations has kept me motivated. We are featuring some stories here that inspired me. I hope they inspire you too.
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