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OECD celebrates 2014 International Women’s Day

Wikis > OECD celebrates 2014 International Women’s Day

On the occasion of 2014 International Women's Day , this article presents the work that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is doing in the field of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The OECD Gender data portal

Gender

The OECD Gender Data Portal includes selected indicators shedding light on gender inequalities in education, employment and entrepreneurship.

While much progress has been accomplished in recent years, there are still relevant dimensions of gender inequalities that are poorly monitored and measured. The Portal is thus a work in progress, that aims at progressively filling these gaps through new indicators. The data cover OECD member countries, as well as the Russian Federation , Brazil , China , India , Indonesia , and Gender Equality in South Women and African Economic Development.

What’s at the root of women’s absence in STEM occupations?

Despite genuine and enormous progress in education and the labour force over the past few decades, women are still under-represented in the fields of technology, mathematics and science and in high-wage occupations. Why? Click here, to read the blog post or see in the ProgBlog.

Boys, girls and mathematics: disparities in performance and in students’ beliefs

Boys continue to outperform girls in mathematics by the equivalent of around three months of school, that is an average of 11 score points in the PISA assessment. Yet boys and girls can both perform at very high levels. The average girl in Shanghai-China scores 610 points in mathematics, well above boys’ average performance in every other school system that participated in PISA. Worringly, the gender gap in mathematics has remained stable in most countries since 2003: the gap in favour of boys narrowed only in Finland , Greece , Sweden , Macao-China and the Gender Equality in the Gender Equality in the Russian Federationn Federation.

PISA 2012 results also reveal that many students, particularly girls, feel anxious about mathematics and have low levels of confidence in their own abilities. Even among girls and boys who perform equally well, girls are more likely to feel anxious towards mathematics, and have less confidence in their own mathematical skills and in their ability to solve mathematics problems than boys. Gender gaps in motivation and self-beliefs are particularly troubling because these factors are essential if students are to achieve at the highest levels and because they have long-lasting consequences on students’ educational and career decisions. In 2011, an average of only 14% of women entering university-level education enrolled in science-related fields (which include science and engineering) or in manufacturing and construction, compared to 39% of men who entered this level of education in these fields.
PISA

Read more:

Gender in public employment: bridging public sector divide?

In many OECD countries, women’s representation is much higher in public sector than in private sector employment. In 2010, women accounted for less than 45% of workers in the total labour force but for 57% of public sector employees in OECD countries.

Yet, general government is characterized by many of the gender gaps found elsewhere in the labour market. Women make up a disproportionate share of part-time employment in central government, where they represented at least two thirds of part-time workers in 2010 in the 16 OECD member countries for which data was available. Women are also under-represented in leadership positions: in 2010 women held more than 50% of secretarial positions (even around 90% in Slovenia and Austria ) but only 40% of middle management and 29% of top management positions.

Figure 1.8 Women in top management positions compared to their share in central government, 2010
OECD

OECD Global Forum on Women’s Leadership in Public Life

The OECD Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development organised a Global Forum on “Women’s Leadership in Public Life: Fostering Diversity for Inclusive Growth” from 2-4 April 2014 at the OECD Conference Centre in Paris.

The Forum provided a unique opportunity to engage with leading actors from government, parliaments, justice institutions, civil society and business worldwide, to explore concrete actions on the following challenges:

  • Closing gender gaps in public life;
  • Strengthening women’s voice;
  • Increasing the inclusiveness of policy making and programme delivery.

Women’s participation in economic and public life, including having a say in decisions that affect their lives, plays a key role in economic growth, equitable governance and public trust from the community level to policy making circles.

In the context of the OECD Gender Initiative, launched by the OECD Ministers, the OECD also prepared a report on “Women in Government and Public Policies: Closing Gender Divides“, which was released at the 2014 OECD Global Forum. This publication provides comparative data and policy benchmarks on women’s access to public leadership and inclusive gender-responsive policy-making across OECD countries.

Further information on the OECD Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development’s work on Gender equality and Women’s Leadership in the public sector may be found here

Gender equality and the post-2015 framework

Unfinished business – women and girls front and centre beyond 2015
The OECD is working to strengthen partnerships to influence global processes including the post-2015 development agenda. MDG3 – gender equality and women’s empowerment – was a powerful stimulus for action by governments and donors alike but progress has been uneven and much “unfinished business” remains. The DAC Network on Gender Equality’s recent Unfinished business – Women and girls front and centre beyond 2015 (May 2013) paper supports countries’ efforts to ensure that women are “front and centre” in the post-2015 framework through a strong standalone goal on gender equality and gender-specific targets and indicators in all other goals. The paper argue that a comprehensive approach is needed to address gender inequalities through:

  1. girls’ completion of a quality education
  2. women’s economic empowerment
  3. universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights
  4. ending violence against women and girls
  5. strengthening women’s voice, leadership and influence
  6. women’s participation in peace and security
  7. women’s contributions to environmental sustainability.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Post-2015 Reflections: Gender Equality!

Financing the unfinished business of gender equality and women’s rights: priorities for the post-2015 framework
New analysis by the DAC Network on Gender Equality and the DAC Working Party on Development Finance Statistics shows that MDG 3 has proved catalytic in galvanising new resources for gender equality and women’s rights. DAC members’ aid flows in support of gender equality and women’s empowerment have tripled since the Millennium Development Goalss from USD 8 billion in 2002 to USD 24 billion in 2012. Retaining a strong standalone goal on gender equality in the post-2015 framework alongside gender-specific targets and indicators across all goals will be critical for mobilising the political will and investment needed to address the “unfinished business” of the MDGs.

DAC

Despite the upward trend in aid focused on gender equality since the MDGs, significant funding gaps remain in priority areas for the post-2015 framework – women’s economic empowerment, family planning, women, peace and security, and women’s participation and leadership. It is time to close these gaps.

Read more:

Including social norms in the post-2015 framework to address gender inequality

During the Event:58th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (United Nations Commission on the Status of Women), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Development Centre is co-organising with Department for International Development (DfID) and gender equality and ODI - Overseas Development Institute a side event on “Tackling discriminatory social norms to empower girls and women: Lessons for a post-2015 framework”. The event highlights the importance of including social norms in the analysis of achievements and shortcomings of the MDGs for gender equality in order to capitalise on lessons learned for the post 2015 agenda. Follow #girlspost2015, #socialnorms and #CSW58 on Twitter!
Womens Papers presented at our event at CSW:

Find out more on our work on social norms
The OECD Development Centre’s 2009 Social Institutions and Gender Index 2012 (SIGI )is an innovative measure of underlying discrimination against women for over 100 countries. While other indices measure gender inequalities in outcomes such as education and employment, the SIGI helps policy-makers and researchers understand what drives these outcomes. The SIGI captures and quantifies discriminatory social institutions – these include among others, early marriage, discriminatory inheritance practices, violence against women, son bias, restrictions on access to public space and restricted access to productive resources.

Young Research

  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Development Centre Issues Paper on adolescent girls
  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Development Centre Issues Paper on violence against women

Find out more about gender work at the OECD Development Centre!

The MENA-OECD Partnership to support women’s economic empowerment

MENA Despite progress in education and efforts by some MENA governments to support women’s development, women still face numerous challenges: women labour force participation is the lowest in the world at 24%, women unemployment is the highest worldwide at 18%, women entrepreneurship lags far behind men’s, and women have difficulty accessing high-level management positions.

The OECD-MENA Investment programme was created in 2005 at the request of 18 MENA governments. In 2007, MENA ministers endorsed the Declaration on Fostering Women’s Entrepreneurship in the MENA Region, and in 2009 they signed an Action Plan on Fostering Women’s Entrepreneurship and Employment in the MENA region.

Since 2009, the MENA-OECD Investment programme has been leading two initiatives to mainstream women’s empowerment into the wider political debate and unlock women’s economic opportunity in the region:

  • The OECD-MENA Women’s Business Forum (WBF) was launched in 2009. It has since grown into a network of over 500 representatives from MENA and OECD governments, business and civil society who meet regularly. It missions are to identify the existing support to women entrepreneurs in the region and where the gaps lie, to improve women’s access to finance and business development services, and to connect women entrepreneurs, provide role models and improve access to information. A first publication entitled Women in Business came out in 2012 and analysed existing practices regarding the promotion of women in business. It was then complemented by the publication of a report on Nurturing Entrepreneurship: Improving Women’s Access to Services and Finance. A second publication on Women in Business will come out in 2014 and will focus on access to finance and business services.
  • The OECD project on Supporting Women as Economic Actors during the Transition period was launched in 2013. It aims at identifying and raising awareness of the legal, social and cultural factors braking women’s economic integration in Algeria , Egypt , Jordan , Morocco and Tunisia . A report on Supporting Women as Economic Actors During the Transition will be published in 2015, along with the creation of an online platform.

The MENA-OECD Women in Government Platform: building capacities for gender policies

In the framework of the MENA-OECD Governance Programme, there has been a strong call from civil society organisations, policy makers and governments to use the existing MENA-OECD Women in Government Platform to lend support to women in the region. The MENA-OECD Women in Government Platform, in collaboration with the international community, can help ensure that MENA women have a voice in the policy dialogue and access to international policy fora, networks and resources. Given the dearth of internationally comparable data on MENA economies, the programme makes an important contribution by disseminating good practices and sharing concrete, innovative and timely solutions with stakeholders from the region. The MENA-OECD Women in Government Platform is well positioned to respond to these critical needs while leveraging the continuity of its established network.

Ensuring that women have a voice in shaping public policy is crucial for fostering social cohesion, ensuring effective and accountable governance and building inclusive growth in MENA economies. Despite significant gains in educational equality over the past decade, MENA women remain under-represented in the economic and political spheres. Women have played a key role in recent uprisings in the region, which could both accelerate or jeopardise progress made in enhancing women’s participation in the economic, political and social spheres. Recent political events can provide an excellent opportunity for women to play a greater part in the political process.

The upcoming 2014 OECD-CAWTAR Report on Gender, Law and Public Policy: Trends in the Middle East and North Africa region. The report will:

  • identify the main areas of persisting gender discriminations in national legislation across selected MENA countries and gaps in complying with international commitments;
  • advise countries on possible amendments to laws, using best practice examples from MENA and OECD countries as a benchmark;
  • provide internationally comparative data and analysis on institutions and practices for enabling gender equality and the equal participation of women and men in economic and public life; and
  • make change happen by supporting policy implementation with tailored capacity-building, based on the findings of the report.

The report will be launched on 28 – 29 May 2014 in Amman, Jordan.

OECD Gender Initiative

In 2010, the OECD launched its OECD Gender Initiative to examine existing barriers to gender equality in education, employment and entrepreneurship (the “three Es”).
See the video below explaining how breaking down barriers to gender equality in education, employment and entrepreneurship would create new sources of economic growth.

“Let me first underline that, besides the tremendous progress we could observe in the last 50 years, there is still a long way to go to achieve real gender equality. Gender is maybe the most underexploited resource for the economy and the society nowadays. This is true for many countries – also at different stages of development. We have not achieved equality, the gap is still wide. Opportunities for women are not equal in education, neither in the labour market, nor in entrepreneurship, or politics. This is a waste for the individuals, but is also an obstacle to realize the full potential of our economies. We need to change this. This is a major an economic imperative. There is an economic and a business case for it. To face the daunting economic challenges of today, we need to tap all sources of growth. We can not waste women’s economic contributions. This is why the OECD has embarked in developing a gender initiative that covers education, employment and entrepreneurship.”

Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General (Chicago, 8 March 2012)See International Women’s Day OECD page: http://www.oecd.org/gender/theoecdgenderbrowserabenchmarkforgenderequality.htm

OECD events in March

  • Well-being and Professional Life, Tuesday 4 March, 19:00-21:30
  • Film evening: Women’s Share, Thursday 6 March, 18:15, Auditorium (organised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Development Centre an the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Organisation-wide Network on Gender and Diversity (OWN))
  • Women’s Economic Empowerment in the MENA Region, Wednesday 19 March, 12:00-14:00, Auditorium
  • Gender Diversity @ OECD: how are we doing? Thursday 27 March, 12:00-14:00, Auditorium

References

 

See also

  • Event:International Women%27s Day
  • Women and Men in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Countries
  • Launch of the 2012 Social Institutions and Gender Index “SIGI”
  • Gender Equality and Women's Leadership in the Public sector
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