| dc.description.abstract | In the 10 years since the World Economic Forum began measuring the global economic
gender gap it has narrowed by only 3%. This slow progress means that today the global
economic participation and opportunity gap still stands at approximately 40%. The
educational attainment gap, however, stands at only 5%.
Higher levels of female participation in education are not leading to commensurate
employment opportunities for women – many barriers to entry and progression still remain
along the female talent pipeline. This disparity is particularly evident when looking at different
levels of education and employment. For example even though more women than men are
enrolling at university in the majority of countries covered by the Forum’s Global Gender
Gap Report (97 out of 145) and the average gender gap in tertiary education is less than
10%, men still outnumber women in skilled jobs; the gender gap in senior management
roles is over 70%. This suggests that, though countries are ideally poised to maximize
opportunities for women’s participation in the labour market, many have failed to reap
the returns from this investment in education due to inhibiting and unaddressed cultural,
structural and workplace factors.
The Forum’s Gender Parity Initiative, therefore, brings together businesses, governments,
civil society and other stakeholders to create partnerships that aim to integrate more
women into the economy. In particular, the initiative serves as a partner in global, regional,
national and industry transformations through a sustained flow of activities to shape,
advance and monitor gender parity.
To meet the increasing demand from business and governments for benchmarking tools,
best practices and policies that can effectively narrow the economic gender gap, the Forum
produces the annual Global Gender Gap Report, which quantifies the magnitude of genderbased disparities and tracks their progress over time. In addition, the Forum’s repository of
company best practices supports those seeking to implement such initiatives in their own
organizations. The Forum also works directly with the private sector to encourage interand-cross industry collaboration on gender parity, supporting companies and sectors to
implement effective practices to narrow their gender gaps and monitor their impact.
In 2012, the Forum built on existing practical and analytical tools as well as on a
widespread appetite for country-level action by launching Gender Parity Task Forces in
Mexico, Turkey and Japan. A further task force followed in 2014 in the Republic of Korea*.
These task forces have sought to generate collaborations between public and private
sector stakeholders with the capacity to bring more women into the economy. The overall
objective has been to understand the barriers to female economic participation and
progress, to collaboratively explore and implement solutions in each country, and to provide
a neutral platform for dialogue and action.
This report outlines the task force model, provides an assessment of the action and
progress made in each country, and explores what lessons can be learned from these pilot
projects. Looking across the experiences of each task force, it is clear that national and
local policy efforts to address gender gaps must be complemented by private sector action
to be more effective. Collaboration, shared goals and ongoing communication between
the public and private sectors are crucial for maximizing the impact of action to advance
economic gender parity.
Looking to the future, and as the official mandate of the task forces comes to an end in
Japan, Mexico and Turkey (and with a year remaining in Korea), members have committed
to building on the infrastructure created and continuing their collaborative efforts. There is
also a great deal of potential for this model to be rolled out elsewhere, in partnership with
regional and other actors or to be taken up independently by governments and domestic
organizations wishing to pursue country-level action. As such, this report provides a guide
for others looking to lead collaborative activity, including a consolidation of the key lessons
learned from these initial task forces.
The Forum would like to express its deep appreciation to the Gender Parity Task Force
co-chairs for their leadership and vision, as well as to the Forum’s Gender Parity Initiative’s
Stewards, the project teams that have supported this work inside the Forum, and the many
stakeholders that have contributed to this work and continue to do so in Mexico, Japan,
Turkey and Korea. | en_US |
