What if restarting the economy meant realigning to reflect the gender balance of the population?
- Businesses would be 15% more profitable
- Employee satisfaction and engagement would be up
- $12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025
- 250 million workers would be added to the worlds labor force
Gender equality is not a women's issue; it is a societal and economic imperative. While the global Coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on many of our systems and habits, it also provides a once in a lifetime opportunity to realign.
Imagine what a true gender-balanced world would look like:
In government – women are 33% more effective at building bipartisan coalitions and passing legislation according to a University of Virginia study (NPR, 2014 )
In leadership - According to McKinsey & Company's Women in the Workplace 2019 study, based on over five years of data from 600 companies in corporate America, women in leadership promote productivity, enhance collaboration, decrease employee burnout and inspire organizational dedication. Companies with the highest representation of women in senior positions are 34% more profitable than companies with the lowest female representation (Catalyst, 2004)
In the economy - $12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025. Paying women fairly fuels economic growth as noted by the McKinsey Global Institute
In innovation – MIT Research shows that balanced teams, where every member feels like they belong and can contribute, are more creative and are 41% more effective than those that are all male or all female.
In the family – In the United States, adult daughters of working mothers earned 23% more than those whose mothers had not worked during their daughters' childhoods—and are more likely to have supervising positions, discovers Harvard Business School. Adult sons of working moms spend nearly double the amount of time on household chores and caregiving responsibilities as sons of stay-at-home moms.
With this evidence, how can we simply settle for the way things were, when gender equity has so much to offer?
Research:
