Welcome to the United Nations
“Work at this point, does not work for women. We are starting a journey to make work work for women”
A crowd of individuals in red, a colour representing solidarity in pursuit of gender equality heard this message delivered by Ms. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, at United Nations Headquarters in observance of International Women’s Day 2017. This year, the priority theme was ‘Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030’. Technological advancements, demographic shifts and globalisation, as well as the growing informal economy and unstable incomes, all adversely affect women by fundamentally altering jobs and job requirements.
The priority theme brought attention to women’s economic empowerment. All panellists advocated decisive action promoting and protecting women’s equal rights in the workplace. The President of the 71st Session of the General Assembly, H.E. Mr. Peter Thomson, declared, “We must introduce policies to address the underrepresentation of women at senior levels. This includes by stamping out negative workplace cultures, providing adequate family leave, and ensuring that women have clear paths to elevate them into senior decision making roles.” Such action is not only important in responding to the changing world of work, but it is also essential if we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
So what sort of experiences are women actually having in the workforce today? A range of speakers from the private sector and civil society offered different perspectives from their industries in the second part of the event.
Representing LinkedIn, Ms. Nicole Isaac presented some promising figures such as the 18% increase in women leadership across the tech sector in the last year. However, Ms. Isaac also drew attention to the fact that women only make up 18% of all CEOs worldwide and that LinkedIn has identified the existence of a gendered skills gap. In response to this, LinkedIn has committed to providing information to women so that they can make informed decisions and gain the skills that are most in demand.
Ms. Anita Roth, Global Head of Policy Research at Airbnb was optimistic in recalling that women who have participated in Airbnb as hosts (and who do so disproportionately to men) have earned over 10 billion dollars in the last eight years. Ms. Roth cited a recent studied carried out by Airbnb which found that roughly 50,000 women hosts are entrepreneurs and they use their Airbnb income to support new business ventures and entrepreneurial enterprises.
Dr. Martha Chen spoke about the often disparaged informal work force and the fact that half of all women workers are employed without legal or social protection. The good news was that female and male informal workers are organising and they are seeing victories, for example; in Pakistan a group of home-based workers recently celebrated a new law that recognises them as workers and entitles them to social protection from the state.
After a morning of interesting presentations, the takeaway message was clear: when it comes to women’s economic empowerment, progress has been made but there is still a long way to go. We must ensure that no one is left behind, including women and their economic potential. There is no doubt that women’s participation in the workforce is good for women, families, society and businesses.
Learn more about UNDESA DSPD’s work on employment.
SOURCE: UNDESA DSPD