Gender equality set back 135 years by pandemic, claims study

Gender equality set back 135 years by pandemic, claims study, with Spain ranked 14th in terms of equality of the 156 countries analysed.

ACCORDING to a report from the Davos World Economic Forum, the health crisis could mean parity will not be achieved until 2156 with the pandemic “suddenly interrupting the very slow process of improvement”, especially in the larger countries.

Last year, WEF stated it would take 99.5 years to close the gender gap, meaning in 12 months, the prediction has increased by 35 years.

And the timeline varies geographically.

In East Asia and the Pacific, women will achieve parity with men in 165 years if progress continues at the current pace, claims the study. That is almost 30 years longer than the worldwide average.

The timeline is worse for South Asian women, 195.4 years, while Western Europe will apparently take the least amount of time to close the gap, at 52.1 years.

The data collected shows that in terms of employment, Covid has significantly affected females in the workplace.

This is for two reasons: on the one hand, women are more employed in sectors directly affected by the pandemic, such as services, tourism and catering.

Secondly, the increased need for care in the home has largely fallen on women’s shoulders.

The report claims that women are under-represented in the “jobs of the future” and this is a worrying figure for the new generations: they represent only 14 per cent of the cloud computing workforce with 20 per cent in artificial intelligence.

LinkedIn data reportedly shows that, despite the economic recovery, hiring for women is slower than for men and it is more difficult for them to be in top positions.

In short, the study shows that the pandemic has exacerbated the disparities “in the family and in work to the detriment of women, states WEF.