Arthur Arlettaz

No country on earth can claim that gender equality is reached and totaly functional : it is a geographically and historically universal problematic. This long lasting issue has great impact on any working branch or social class. Gender inequality can be perceived at work, where women earn in average less than men, at school, where in some countries the girls are advised to stay at home and don’t get a proper education, in public places or households, where they can get abused and assaulted. This inequalities have repercussions on numerous aspects of our society : mental health, familiy life, social interactions, economy, …  All these challenges are listed in the SDGs which try to set goals in order to find solutions and resolve this situation. In this blog post, I would like to briefly to look into why these disparities persist in our modern world before discussing more precisely the impacts of such inequalities on public health and the economy. Finally I would like to look into success stories of how gender equality improved.[1]

The first reason evoked for such inequality is the so called « gender stereotypes » which cannot be underestimated. There exist many of these stereotypes that shape our perception of other people in our daily life. These stereotypes are not necessarily conscious ones but they still affect us in many ways. One of many example would be the fact that men are perceived as naturally more authoritative and women on the other hand more empathic which would explain their prevalence in jobs such as nursery or education. This can seem irrelevant but strongly impacts decision making in many situations such as hiring an employee or other situations and interactions in our daily life. These gender stereotypes had for consequences that in most households the man has a working life, bringing home the income that is essential for the family while the woman stays at home and takes care of the domestic duties such as cleaning, cooking, etc… But they also drive women towards jobs associated with domestic and feminine skills. Indeed, in the United States of America, 77% of the teachers, 82% of the social workers and 74% of the flight attendants are female. So those kind of professions that pay less are dominated by women while high paying ones (doctors ,lawyers, politicians) are still dominated by men (https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/14/why-gender-pay-gap-still-persists-what-we-can-do-about-it/). I don’t want to look deeper into the origins of such traditions since the mentioned explanations are highly controversial, calling in as well history as obscure pseudo-scientific domains which don’t bring a satisfactory definitive answer to this complexe problematic.  A well-known employment inequality factor is also the fact that managers don’t want to pay for childcare or maternity leave. This plays an important role in private companies and strongly influence decision making for employment or promotions.  What’s more domestic work is not considered as a profession and for this mostly not remunerated.[2]

All of this has a great impact on numerous domains starting with the health. It has been proven that not allowing young women access to primary education has a strong negative impact on birth spacing, fertility rate and mental health. It has indeed been proven that mental pathologies such as anxiety, burnout or depression are 3 times more present in women than men. This can be explained by socio-economic factors such as the ones listed above (gender stereotypes, lower incomes, …). Many women suffer from what can be called « emotive charge » where taking care of the children, taking a lot of their time to look after them, easing their pain and suffering can lead to a kind of « familiy burnout ». This effect is growing amongst women and too often underestimated, housework being often considered as a non stressing activity/not a real job. It has also been shown that physical illness that are more related to women have less mediatic, scientific and economic interest than the ones touching exclusively men. This could be the case for endometriose which has been the source of many protests since it is considered as a neglected thema by many, mostly feministic organisations. The research is not sufficient and no cure has been found yet altough it is a serious public issue causing not only a lot of pain for the women suffering from it but also damaging her sexuality, fertility and mental health. Moreover the economical impact of this disease can be compared to the one from diabetes. But why have the authorities so few interest in this problematic ? Some claim that the origin can be found in common belief and education where women have been taught that pain during menstruation is a normal process that shouldn’t be worrying at all. This has for consequence that women who suffer from this disease won’t try to seek medical help or dare to talk about their pain. This is why the research in this field is so young and underdeveloped.[3]

I would like now to lean into the impact of such disparities on the economic system. I will focus more on developing countries since it was easier to find scientific papers for this kind of situations. Although economic growth is controversial nowadays and being highly criticized for its impact on the environment and public health it is for many a necessary process for developing countries in order to obtain a sufficient material basis and quality of life. This is why any process that could attend economic growth in those countries should be seriously taken into account. A study by The World Bank Economic Review showed for example a correlation between gender inequality in education and economic growth. The paper studied the case of East Asia which made important progress in gender inequalities between 1960 and 1980, in comparison with South Asia who showed almost no progress whatsoever. They then noticed that the economic growth difference soared between those two regions, East Asia having a much higher one. Interesting enough, this effect was much more important when comparing developing countries as industrial economies. I won’t go into the statistical details of this study and try to explain the deeper reasons of this effect since I don’t think it is the goal of this blog post. Nevertheless, I would like to point out 2 facts that could convince you that this effect is real. First of all, the paper states that the conclusion reconciles with many other older papers on the same thematic. Secondly, and this is just a simplification of the situation but sometimes simple intuitions can help understanding problematics, if women don’t have access to education and have a lower income this lowers human capital and by extension GDP which as we all know is a key factor for economic growth. I will end this chapter with another interesting number : if North Africa, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle-East had started a more equitable education and work space for women, they could have had a 0.9% higher annual economic growth each year. If this is true, improving this SDG could also contribute to progress SDG number 8 (decent work and economic growth). Part of the solution could maybe lying in communication of such papers to authorities of developing countries where economic growth is crucial.[4]

Let’s now take a look into examples in latin America where a progress in gender equality was achieved and how it was achieved. In this situation, NGO’s played a crucial in women empowerment. In effect, those feminist organisations organized informal education in the form of workshops where crucial thematics such as domestic violence, women’s rights, reproductive rights, sexuals rights, political rights and many more. With this process, women who only had poor education, if not any, gained awareness on their situations, their rights, how they can proceed in order to improve their daily lives and gained a sense of citizenship. They also learned critical thinking, against inequalities and the actual political system for example. But they also learned some more practical skills such as organisation, leadership, personal development that can can strongly contribute to their well-being. What’s more, such informal educative reunions enabled women to step out of their private sphere which is an important step in realising the inequalities that have been oppressing them until then. The role of these NGO’s is thus major because they not only educate women with concrete skills but also spread awareness about how better the situation could be. Other actions have been launched : creation of monthly newspapers, sensibilisation campaign with slogans such as « He who loves doesn’t kill », …  As stated in my second paragraph, awareness of the issue, and its consequences, by the government is also necessary so that the sufficient measures can be taken and on a larger scale and with more funding. This is in fact what happened in the Dominican Republic where the government created the « Women’s State Secretariat » in 1999. This movement changed a lot in the dynamic of the country where women were more represented in politics, media and many other domains. In my opinion this example shows that the first step to progress in this field is awareness but more connections between those organisations, formal education and the politics could also be an important factor in the future. Figure 4.1 belies somehow some of the improvement and shows that GPI (Gender Parity Index) has not made so much progress and even diminished in latin America. But we must take into consideration that it is still much higher and closer to gender equality than in sub-saharan Africa and arab States. This decrease is nevertheless alarming and should be observed in order to prevent any further depletion of the situation. As for the causes, I would guess that it is due to political changes or cutbacks in the NGO’s but my knowledge is not good enough to satisfactory explain it.[5]

In this blog post I didn’t mention a lot of solutions for developed countries such as Switzerland. This doesn’t mean that the situation is optimal, on the contrary. Many arrangements and changes have to operate in order to improve women place in our society. A paternity leave could already be a first step towards an improvement.