Gender Equality at a Crossroads

10 years ago, the World Bank Group published the World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development (WDR2012). Over the last decade, progress has been achieved in several key areas. Maternal mortality has decreased by around 10 percent, girls' enrollment in secondary school has increased by 5 percent. The Women Business and the Law index shows that women's economic rights have improved, and there are now more women than ever before in national parliaments across the globe.

However, progress has been slow in many important domains. Female labor force participation rates fall well below 40 percent in low-income countries. Significantgender wage gaps persist, and, in many countries, women are still clustered into sectors and occupations typically associated with lower profits, absence of work contracts, and lack of protection. The gender digital divide threatens women and girls' access to quality healthcare, education, jobs, and civic participation. Women continue to be responsible for the bulk of child and elder care in the home and remain underrepresented as leaders, especially at the highest levels. Globally, violence against women and girls remains widespread.

Protecting and investing in people, including women and girls, will help address these challenges and enable all people to achieve their full potential, building human capital and more inclusive and equitable societies. The world could achieve a 'gender dividend' of $172 trillion by closing gaps in lifetime labor earnings between women and men. Ensuring all people have access to quality education, health services, and safety nets also makes people and societies more resilient to shocks caused by health emergencies, climate change, or economic crises.

Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, fiscal pressures were mounting, constraining opportunities to help close gender gaps. The World Bank's Global Waves report notes that before the pandemic, half of all low-income countries were already in debt distress or at a high risk of it. Since the pandemic began, debt levels in low- and middle-income countries have surged, resulting in many countries facing a reduction in priority expenditures, including programs that support girls' and women's empowerment.

The COVID-19 crisis has compounded challenges for women and girls, exacerbating barriers to participating in the economy and public life, and intensifying a parallel pandemic of violence against women and girls. In Latin America and the Caribbean, women are 44 percent more likely than men to lose their jobs, and an estimated 11 million girls might not return to school due to the COVID-19 pandemic's disruption. UN Women reports that since the pandemic began, violence against women has intensified.

The available data on adolescent girls' return to school are concerning. When schools reopened after six months of closure in Uganda, 18 percent of grade 12 girls did not return, compared to two percent of grade 12 boys. In Bangladesh, 53 percent of girls reported spending less time on education than before the COVID-19 lockdown, and 93 percent reported more time spent on household chores and childcare. Among girls who did not return to school, 27 percent reported pregnancy as the reason for not returning.

The urgency of the COVID-19 crisis demands bold solutions, but also presents an unprecedented opportunity to build back better, particularly for women and girls. Close attention should be paid to the needs of women facing multiple forms of disadvantage, including poverty, migrant status, ethnicity, race, disability, and location.

The effects of climate change and the corresponding changes in national policies and development strategies will affect economic opportunities for both men and women. It will be important that women are positioned alongside men in a just transition and can be agents of change for green transition and resilience as well as inclusion.

Recent research has revealed a strong link between fragility, forced displacement, and gender outcomes. At the end of 2020, there were over 80 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide, doubling from 40 million in 2010. While men and women are impacted differently by conflict and displacement, there is scope to move beyond considerations of gender-based vulnerability toward empowering women and girls to contribute to increased community resilience.

It is increasingly clear that gender-unequal social norms prevent women from becoming equal citizens, leaders, and agents of change. Such social norms prevent women from seeking wage employment outside the household, aspiring to jobs in male-dominated occupations and sectors, and avoiding early marriage and childbearing so that they can complete their education.

To drive transformative change, the World Bank Group's yearlong Gender Equality and Development +10: Accelerate Equality initiative will explore the important progress made and lessons learned over the last 10 years, while strengthening partnerships with a diverse group of stakeholders on this critical topic. Holistic solutions required to close the most stubborn gender gaps will depend on dedicated efforts not only from policy makers and other client counterparts, but also from the private sector, financial institutions, researchers, multilaterals, and - perhaps most importantly - the local governments, NGOs, women's movements, and other civil society groups that work directly with communities.

Building on the evidence and the momentum, now is the time to accelerate action towards gender equality.