Women ‘work more than men, but earn far less’

Women around the world bear the burden of unpaid labour, work more hours than men, yet earn just a little over half of what what men earn, according to the Global Gender Gap report of the World Economic Forum (WEF). 

“Women around the world on average earning just over half of what men earn despite, on average, working longer hours taking paid and unpaid work into account,” read an article explaining the details of the report.

Unpaid work is work done without a salary attached to it, with domestic work being the commonest form, and mostly women spending more time on unpaid work such as housework, childcare and care for older people.

According to the report, women work at least 50 minutes more in a day than men, and 39 days more in a year.

The reports also showed that it could take at least 83 years to bridge the gap of economic inequalities between men and women.

It said rather than improve, the economic inequalities are getting worse. One of the persistent challenges including stagnant labour-force participation with only 54 per cent of women around the world having paid jobs as opposed to 81 per cent of men.

WEF also said the world is short changing itself and putting economic growth and development at risk.

“The world is facing an acute misuse of talent by not acting faster to tackle gender inequality, which could put economic growth at risk and deprive economies of the opportunity to develop,” it said.

The Global Gender Gap survey ranked 144 countries based on the gap “between women and men on health, education, economic and political indicators”.

The reports aimed to find out if countries were allocating resources equitably between both sexes and measures inequality gaps in four areas – economic participation and opportunity – salaries, participation and leadership, education – access to basic and higher levels of education, political empowerment – representation in decision-making structures, health and survival – life expectancy and sex ratio.