Economic Gain Through Gender Equality
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-09-20/economic-gain-through-gender-equality
Gender equality is not only the right thing to do, it’s smart economics. This is the message of a new World Bank report on the importance of empowering women around the world. According to the research, women now represent forty percent of the work force but hold just one percent of the wealth. They earn between twelve and eighty cents to every dollar earned by men. And, despite an increase in life expectancy, nearly four million females "go missing" in developing countries every year. However, reducing the gender gap means changing governments on the national and local level. We examine the global economic advantages and challenges of narrowing the gender gap.
Guests
Robert Zoellick
president of The World Bank
former deputy secretary, U.S. Department of State
Kakenya Ntaiya
president and founder of The Kakenya Center for Excellence
Ritu Sharma
co-founder and president of Women Thrive Worldwide
Program Highlights
A new World Bank report says empowering women is smart economics. The argument is that greater gender equality can enhance productivity and improve development outcomes for the next generation. World Bank President Robert Zoellick and two women working hard to challenge the gender gap all over the world talk about what it will take to enact real change.
What Can the World Bank Do?
Over the past 5 years, the World Bank has devoted $65 billion to projects that have integrated gender components. According to World Bank President Robert Zoellick, the challenge for the World Bank as a large institution dealing with 187 different countries is mainstreaming this kind of assistance so that "it doesn't just become a check in the box." "How do you make sure that when people are designing projects that they're understanding some of the gender elements?" Zoellick said.
Work Gets in the Way of Opportunity
Kakenya Ntaiya, President and Founder, The Kakenya Center for Excellence: "I've traveled all over the world and spent many, many hours working alongside women on farms, speaking with women in villages, really listening to their priorities. And the two things that I hear most about that are preventing them from contributing more is that they barely have time to sleep. Women are working 17 or 18 hours a day." The idea that women have some "untapped potential" could be dangerous without taking into account the practicalities of everyday life for them in these countries, "when what they really need is just more time."
What Creates Real Change?
Ritu Sharma, co-founder and president of Women Thrive Worldwide: "I think the best thing the Word Bank could do is to invest. Invest in women like Kakenya. There are so many women who are doing extraordinary things in their communities, incredible...starting businesses with $50. Women who are building shelters for women in Afghanistan, the dangerous place in the world."
Changing Men's Perceptions
Sharma says it is also vital that fathers, husbands and brothers begin to see the women in their families as full human beings and to love them as much as they love the men in the family. Ntaiya says that some men still want to see women as second-class citizens. "It's that will, that one person who can stand up and say, no. And that is what I'm looking for, that one man or two men in my village who will say that," Ntaiya said.
You can read the full transcript here.
Comments
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If one believes that there are some noticeable fraction of the female population as able to work and to think as well as the majority of men, and especially if some of those can do as well as the best of men, female inequality represents a silly waste of available talent.
Of course, there have always been those who, informed by tribal beliefs masquerading as religion and science both, do not hold with the above claim of competency or excellence. And there are certainly insecure men who are quite willing to live poor and in pain just so long as The Way Things Are Supposed to Be (that is, their having violent power over other human beings) were maintained. We should laugh at such men, loudly, routinely, and in public.
Does anyone know what the flute music was (artist and song) that played during the break around 9:20? I've heard it before and can't find out what it is. Thanks
Wow, I have to think American women treat finances a little differently than those of other Countries.... if my wife was in control of our money, we'd be bankrupt within 6 months....
One of the least expensive and most effective ways to help women achieve equality is to educate women and men to the advantages of using family planning methods to enable them to choose freely when and how many children they will have. Making contraception available and educating people about reproductive health, reduces infant and maternal mortality. It makes for healthier babies and healthier families.
and well put, Gerald..
And the report is perhaps even more telling, considering the social and economic structures of the playing field - outmoded beliefs, exploitative capitalism - have been heavily influenced by men (though there are plenty of men ill-served by them too).
Jobs pay based on expertise and dependability. Women are inherently less dependable with the "threat" of pregnancy and childbirth. Therefore, they come with a higher cost. I agree that the gender gap is too large, but if a company is having different cost/benefit expectations based explicitly on gender and the inherited considerations, then women will never be paid the same as men. It is illogical to think otherwise - in fact, this is fair to all workers. Until gender does not play a part in the role of an employee, the gender gap will exist.
That being said, the U.S. is in a very different place than others around the globe. The gender gap elsewhere seems largely based on bigotry, rather than a substantive cost/benefit analysis - something that should be fixed so that these places can more easily prosper. I think it is also key to realize that we are demanding of other countries something that took nearly 100 years of "developed" time to materialize.
A Rererun of a recent comment.
mchaun wrote:
A rerun of a recent Comment-
"255.HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Forrest
Winston-Salem, NC
March 4th, 2011
---- you Schadenfreude scum bags. 30 Years of Reagan / Bush Government may have seen to your every need, but me and mine have seen nothing but hard work and mountains of debt at the Company Store.
30 YEARS OR MORE for a TWO INCOME FAMILY to buy a lousy ticky tacky house 50 miles from our jobs. 5 Years to buy a car. 10 or more years to pay off college costs preparing for a job that will be taken by an H-1B Immigrant whose education was paid for by his Father gouging another $0.10 per Kilo of Rice from his starving Peasants. Then S/He will remit his/her wages to prepare a nice berth for when S/He goes back home to retire and live like a Rajah on Social Security.
A Reagan-Gingrich CPI-COLA that screws Workers and Social Security Annuitants from 2 to 4 % per Year.
Then the final indignity of being told we should have prepared better for our Retirement.
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
This program was the typical Blah-blah of simple-minded slogans that don't make sense even under the shallowest consideration.
Nearly all of the "Progress" made by women has been made at the expense of their Husbands, Sons and Fathers and FAMILIES!!!
The Ratio of Male to Female Workers has gone from 65-35 in 1970 to 50-50 now. Since Women earn 55% of Men's wages, anyone care to estimate the overall lost wages from that shift?
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
Couldn't agree with Gerald more. This isn't new info-- women invest better-- but time and work restrictions (including the maternity issue below) all comes down to the same thing, both overseas and in the US: men aren't picking up the slack. Men can carry water, firewood, cook and clean as well as those of us with a uterus. Societies can also invest in social support for that small thing women do: perpetuate the human race. 1-2 years of good health care and part-time work and child care during gestation, birth and breastfeeding is a smart investment for all of us who live among human societies. Men can also work reduced hours for child care, and the sky doesn't fall. Step up, fellas.