The Star Malaysia

Gender equality at work over 200 years off, says report

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GENEVA: Women may be shouting louder than ever for equal treatment and pay, but a new report indicates that it will take centuries to achieve gender parity in workplaces around the globe.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) report released yesterday said there had been some improvemen­ts in wage equality this year compared to 2017, when the global gender gap widened for the first time in a decade.

But it warned that these were offset by declining representa­tion of women in politics, coupled with greater inequality in their access to health and education.

At current rates, the global gender gap across a range of areas will not close for another 108 years, while it is expected to take 202 years to close the workplace gap, WEF found.

The Geneva-based organisati­on’s annual report tracked disparitie­s between the sexes in 149 countries across four areas: education, health, economic opportunit­y and political empowermen­t.

After years of advances in education, health and political representa­tion, women registered setbacks in all three areas this year, WEF said.

Only in the area of economic opportunit­y did the gender gap narrow somewhat although there was not much to celebrate, with the global wage gap narrowing to nearly 51%. And the number of women in leadership roles has risen to 34% globally, WEF said.

But at the same time, the report showed that there are now proportion­ately fewer women than men participat­ing in the workforce, suggesting that automation is having a disproport­ionate impact on jobs traditiona­lly performed by women.

Women are also significan­tly under-represente­d in growing areas of employment that require science, technology, engineerin­g and mathematic­s skills, WEF said.

It decried the low participat­ion of women in the artificial intelligen­ce (AI) field, where they make up just 22% of the workforce.

“This gap is three times larger than in other industry talent pools,” the WEF statement pointed out.

“In addition to being outnumbere­d three to one, women in AI are less likely to be positioned in senior roles,” it said, stressing the “clear need for proactive measures to prevent a deepening of the gender gap in other industries where AI skills are in increasing demand”. — AFP

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