The Amount Global GDP Would Increase By If Women Had the Same Economic Opportunities as Men
published on 07 May 2019
At greater risk of unemployment. Paid less for doing the equivalent job. More likely to work in the informal economy. Despite the great progress that has been made in recent decades, when it comes to employment, women still face many forms of discrimination. Despite this, they represent a key source of growth, particularly in developing countries.
According to the latest figures published by the International Labour Organization (ILO), of the 3.5 billion people who made up the working population in 2018, 3 out of 5 were men. The employment rate for women, which was 48% in 2018, remains much lower than that for men, thought to be 75%.
Women continue to be paid less for doing the same work and on average earn 33% less than men. More worrying still, in its latest report, the ILO also highlights that, after a period of marked improvement that lasted until 2003, progress on reducing employment inequality between men and women has slowed.
However, in 2017, the ILO drew attention to the many benefits to be gained from reducing the gender employment gap. According to its estimates, reducing this gap by 25% would inject US $5,800 billion into the global economy, just through salaries. The extra tax revenues from income tax alone would come out at around $1,500 billion. In 2015, the McKinsey Global Institute took this hypothesis further still by estimating that, were we to achieve complete gender employment equality, global GDP would soar by 26% by 2025, equivalent to an extra US $28,000 injected into the world economy.
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