SEATTLE — Gender inequality is a pressing issue that many countries struggle to resolve. However, some countries are more impacted than others particularly in the African continent. In the year 2000, the U.N. launched an eight-part plan called the Gender inequality is a pressing issue that many countries struggle to resolve. However, some countries are more impacted than others particularly in the African continent. In the year 2000, the U.N. launched an eight-part plan called the Millennium Project to combat global poverty.
Of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) described in the project, six marked women and girls as the target demographic. The choice to focus alleviation efforts on females was based on the impression that gender equality and female empowerment are indispensable in efforts to achieve all of the U.N. alleviation goals.
The gender gap is not only a social injustice but also a truly subversive facet of the economy. The Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum makes a case for gender equality based on economic competitiveness rather than seeking a moral approach.
The report states that a country’s competitiveness in a global market is most dependent on its “human talent,” the efficiency and competency of its labor. Thus, to ignore or abuse half of the country’s present talent pool is unwise and has a substantial negative impact on its competitiveness.
The gender gap in Africa demonstrates this fiscal impact.
Despite the fact that African women are the most active economic female agents worldwide, they face many obstructions to their full potential. These disadvantages include oppressive cultural practices, discriminatory legislation and segregated job sectors, which converge to manifest in a gender gap.
African women are largely concentrated in subsistence-level agriculture and other marginal economic engagements. Furthermore, internal bias effectively discourages women’s involvement in the economy. Discrimination in both formal legislation and customary practices result in women having less access to land, insecure land tenure and limited access to financial services like credit.
Additionally, due to the gender conformity keeping the gender gap alive, women overwhelmingly bear the burden of domestic work. In some countries, women perform four times more household tasks than men.
The gender gap here, paired with exceptional strains of care resulting from the poor state of local infrastructure, such as limited access to water and fuel, also make women time-poor. Facing a double workday, women have limited time and energy to expend on productivity and becoming more valuable members to the economy.
Amarakoon Bandara, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Economics Advisor, created a growth model to measure the impact of the gender gap on effective labor in Africa. According to the findings of this study, “Total annual economic losses due to gender gaps in effective labor could exceed $60 billion for Sub-Saharan Africa while such costs could be as high as $255 billion for the African region as a whole.”
Similarly, a study from the African Development Bank Group explains that gender equality contributes to growth and poverty reduction. It finds that with increased gender equity, female employment increases as does entrepreneurship and access to constructive resources and strengthened political voices.
Despite the many improvements needed to close the gender gap in Africa, it isn’t all bad news for women in many African countries. The World Bank details the significant progress Africa has made in the past few decades.
The gender gap in primary school enrollment was drastically diminished, maternal mortality rates were almost halved, the ratio of women to men in the labor force increased to greater than in any region globally and the average representation of women in national parliaments more than doubled.
Undoubtedly, there are certain countries in Africa that can teach the rest of the world a thing or two. These exceptional countries have not only managed such significant improvements but have done so against the odds of familiar, disheartening statistics.
– Alexis Viera
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