Gender inequality? It costs only $9 trillion every year

Progress in making women equal to men in the economy is painfully slow, and women are still more likely than men to live in poverty, says the report, entitled “An Economy that Works for Women” published by Oxfam.

According to the source, globally, the average gender pay gap is 23 percent and 700 million fewer women than men are in paid work.  The compiled data reveal that women carry out between two and 10 times more unpaid care work than men, which is worth $10 trillion to the global economy each year, equivalent to over an eighth of the world’s entire GDP, “Women’s disproportionate responsibility for the work squeezes the amount of time that they have to go to school and earn a living. 

"At current rates, the time it will take to close the 23 per cent global pay gap between men and women stands at 170 years, 52 years longer than it would have done just a year ago. And, over the past five years, donor funding directly to women's rights organisations has more than halved. All of this risks putting women's rights in reverse."

On this, the Head of Oxfam's Even It Up campaign, Deepak Xavier, said that across the world, many of the basic human rights women have secured over the last few decades are at risk.

Recent research showed that globally, 57 million unpaid workers are filling in the gaps caused by inadequate healthcare provision,” read the document.
The report also refers to the data of the World Economic Forum, saying instead of improving in 2016, gender inequality in the economy reverted to where it stood in 2008. 

The authors of the report suggest that women’s economic empowerment could reduce poverty for everyone. In order to achieve it, the authors call for fixing the current broken economic model which is undermining gender equality and causing extreme economic inequality.

"Studies also show that inequality in economic terms costs women in developing countries 9 trillion dollars a year; a sum that would not only benefit women but would unlock new spending power for their families and produce a boost to the economy as a whole."

This International Women's Day, OXFAM calls for people around the world to stand up for women's equal right to safe, decent, fairly paid work and a world free from the injustice of poverty.

To tackle the inequality, Oxfam recommends businesses create better job conditions, pay bigger wages, lift minimum wages to living wage standards, and repeal legislations violating women’s rights. The organization also advises there should be a recognition, reduction, and redistribution of unpaid care work.