he economic impact of the COVID-19 continues to disproportionately affect women. A new United Nations report, “The Impact of COVID-19 on Women” shows the effects of the pandemic are reversing previous gains toward achieving gender equality and women’s economic autonomy. Across the globe, women continue to play the primary role as caregiver in their families and as children stayed home from school in 2020 during the global pandemic, women did too.
McKinsey recent research on the impact of COVID-19 concludes “one in four women considered leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers versus one in five men.” In addition to social and cultural norms of women’s role in both the workforce and family expectations, there are also legal barriers women continue to face that hinder their ability to become economically independent.
As world leaders meet for the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, there is an opportunity to improve the impact of COVID-19 on local economies by lifting legal restrictions of women’s ability to participate in the workforce. Laws that prohibit women from becoming contributors to the country’s economy will hinder the ability of countries in making progress and eventually achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Various restrictions in countries prohibit women from being active members of the economy. According to the World Bank, 74 countries around the world ban women from working in specific industries. Women are prohibited from mining in 65 of those countries. Other examples include the restriction of women from being bus drivers, working at night, or owning property. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and World Bank data, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has the widest entrepreneurship gender gap in the world. Only 20 percent of women in the region are participating in the workforce, the lowest in the world. An additional $575 billion per year could be gained if these gaps were closed.
In addition to bans on women’s participation in specific industries, there is a lack of protection for women currently in the workforce. Equality Now, an international network supporting the rights of women, states that “in 50 countries there are no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace and in 18 countries husbands are legally allowed to prevent their wives from working.” Women that do have jobs aren’t thriving either. Women can still be fired in 38 countries if they become pregnant. These legal restrictions and lack of legal workplace protections impact all SDGs. If women are barred from certain professions, forbidden from owning property, or forced to obtain permission from men in their family to travel, then the other SDGs suffer (e.g. ending poverty, eliminating hunger, and improving quality education).
Now is the time to eliminate discrimination against women and improve economic conditions of affected countries, which will help move forward the SDG agenda.
As a step forward, three key areas should be considered. First, further emphasis should be placed on the importance of WEE within the current SDGs. For example, although SDG5, “advance gender equality and empower all women,” has a target goal to improve women’s rights to equal access to economic resources as well as focused on legal restrictions regarding land ownership, this does not adequately reflect the vast legal impediments to women’s economic independence as a significant barrier to development. In addition, SDG9 which is focused on economic development, could have an indicator explicitly focused on addressing women’s participation in the economy. We must seize this moment during the global economic crisis by leveraging the SDGs to focus on dismantling the legal barriers to women’s economic participation.
Second, there should be more emphasis on leveraging of SDG17, which is focused on partnerships to further engage with the private sector, to help make the case for the importance of eliminating various legal restrictions to leverage a more diverse global workforce. And finally, further domestic pressure needs to be placed on governments to achieve these goals and break down these barriers. Local civil society organizations should bring further public awareness to these international commitments and place domestic public pressure on the national governments to achieve these international objectives. It’s past due to help improve equal rights and move the global economy forward.
Editor's Note: This feature was originally published in Diplomatic Courier's UNGA 2021 special print edition.
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Women are Key to Solving the UN SDGs
Photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash.
September 24, 2021
Lifting legal limitations on women's access to the workforce - which still exist in 74 countries - will not only boost recovery from the pandemic, but is critical if the world is to fulfill the UN's SDGs, writes the International Republican Institute's Rima Kawas.
T
he economic impact of the COVID-19 continues to disproportionately affect women. A new United Nations report, “The Impact of COVID-19 on Women” shows the effects of the pandemic are reversing previous gains toward achieving gender equality and women’s economic autonomy. Across the globe, women continue to play the primary role as caregiver in their families and as children stayed home from school in 2020 during the global pandemic, women did too.
McKinsey recent research on the impact of COVID-19 concludes “one in four women considered leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers versus one in five men.” In addition to social and cultural norms of women’s role in both the workforce and family expectations, there are also legal barriers women continue to face that hinder their ability to become economically independent.
As world leaders meet for the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, there is an opportunity to improve the impact of COVID-19 on local economies by lifting legal restrictions of women’s ability to participate in the workforce. Laws that prohibit women from becoming contributors to the country’s economy will hinder the ability of countries in making progress and eventually achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Various restrictions in countries prohibit women from being active members of the economy. According to the World Bank, 74 countries around the world ban women from working in specific industries. Women are prohibited from mining in 65 of those countries. Other examples include the restriction of women from being bus drivers, working at night, or owning property. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and World Bank data, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has the widest entrepreneurship gender gap in the world. Only 20 percent of women in the region are participating in the workforce, the lowest in the world. An additional $575 billion per year could be gained if these gaps were closed.
In addition to bans on women’s participation in specific industries, there is a lack of protection for women currently in the workforce. Equality Now, an international network supporting the rights of women, states that “in 50 countries there are no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace and in 18 countries husbands are legally allowed to prevent their wives from working.” Women that do have jobs aren’t thriving either. Women can still be fired in 38 countries if they become pregnant. These legal restrictions and lack of legal workplace protections impact all SDGs. If women are barred from certain professions, forbidden from owning property, or forced to obtain permission from men in their family to travel, then the other SDGs suffer (e.g. ending poverty, eliminating hunger, and improving quality education).
Now is the time to eliminate discrimination against women and improve economic conditions of affected countries, which will help move forward the SDG agenda.
As a step forward, three key areas should be considered. First, further emphasis should be placed on the importance of WEE within the current SDGs. For example, although SDG5, “advance gender equality and empower all women,” has a target goal to improve women’s rights to equal access to economic resources as well as focused on legal restrictions regarding land ownership, this does not adequately reflect the vast legal impediments to women’s economic independence as a significant barrier to development. In addition, SDG9 which is focused on economic development, could have an indicator explicitly focused on addressing women’s participation in the economy. We must seize this moment during the global economic crisis by leveraging the SDGs to focus on dismantling the legal barriers to women’s economic participation.
Second, there should be more emphasis on leveraging of SDG17, which is focused on partnerships to further engage with the private sector, to help make the case for the importance of eliminating various legal restrictions to leverage a more diverse global workforce. And finally, further domestic pressure needs to be placed on governments to achieve these goals and break down these barriers. Local civil society organizations should bring further public awareness to these international commitments and place domestic public pressure on the national governments to achieve these international objectives. It’s past due to help improve equal rights and move the global economy forward.
Editor's Note: This feature was originally published in Diplomatic Courier's UNGA 2021 special print edition.
