In 118 years we will achieve equality between men and women
The World Economic Forum held last November the tenth edition of the Global Report on Gender Inequality with the publication of 2015 data, revealing that for the first time women earn the same as men ... they won a decade ago. Despite the 250 million women who have entered the labor market since 2006, The global projection of equality extrapolated from the report marks the 2133 as the year in which equality in the economic sphere will be reached between men and women.
A very slow progress in terms of equality between men and women
According to the report of the World Economic Forum, the gender gap in health, education, politics and economic opportunities has closed only 4% and the economic gap only 3%. If the advance is stable, it would take us 118 years to achieve equality, and that only in the economic field. In education. inequality has increased by 22%, despite the fact that in 97 countries the number of women enrolled in the university is greater than that of men.
Since 2009, the progress towards equality in the labor market and equal pay it has stagnated remarkably although, in principle, equality in economic opportunities has improved by 4%. According to the report, health and survival are the pillar closest to equality (or at least it is the one that reflects the most favorable data for women). In addition, although it is the area in which there is a greater disparity, in politics the greatest progress towards equality has been registered.
However, although the presence of women in politics has increased, only 18 of the 193 countries recognized by the UN are governed by women (countries such as Germany, Brazil, Chile or Liberia). In general, of the 109 countries that the World Economic Forum has been analyzing since 2006, 104 have shown an improvement in equality between men and women while the remaining five have worsened. Only the United States has dropped eight positions since 2014.
Spain is among the countries that have shown the greatest growth in the category of economic participation, occupying the twenty-fifth position in the equality ranking global (above the United States, Canada or Luxembourg). Nobody has obtained better data than us in the access to primary, secondary and higher education: in the three sectors more women than men have been included. Surprisingly, this negative inequality for men is recorded with a point, that is, with the highest score that a country can get in terms of equality.
Is the World Economic Forum report really reliable?
If there is one thing that is not surprising about the results of the report, it is that, according to the report, the Nordic countries are still the most egalitarian societies in the world. Iceland leads the ranking followed by Norway, Finland and Sweden. What is striking is that Rwanda occupies the sixth place, a country that combines the parliament with the most female presence in the world, with an undemocratic regime that has been denounced by the UN for its participation in the "dirty war" by the coltan of the Congo.
Further, other countries that suspend reports on respect for human rights of its citizens, such as Burundi (ranked 23) or Cuba (29), are positioned ahead of countries such as Canada, Luxembourg or Australia and the first in fact surpasses Spain and the United States (28). Can states in which democracy shines by its absence really be some of the most egalitarian in the world?
If this report analyzing gender equality is studied carefully, the first thing that strikes one is that does not study the inequality between men and womens. If a country collects data with profound differences between the female and male population, it can still head the list of the most egalitarian in the world, as long as the unfavorable data are those of men. That is, the object of study of the report is exclusively the unfavorable situation of women in the world.
Among the factors that determine the ranking are some that are outside the control of the States, such as the percentage of girls births compared to boys; in many, the male population suspends systematically without affecting the country's position on the list (such as life expectancy); and others are relative and their figures deceive, as the female percentage of the population incorporated into the labor market.
Parity in the numbers of this report is not synonymous with justice, true equality or well-being. In rich countries more women can afford to stop working when they become pregnant; reality contrasted with the situation of the great majority of women in countries like Burundi who are forced to work in subhuman conditions to feed their families.Indicators that would trigger alarms in most reports may favor in this country from which they come.
Dictatorships at the top of the ranking
If you take the data from Iceland, Spain, Rwanda, the United States, Cuba, Canada and Russia, you can easily see the shortcomings of the report. Russia ranks 42nd in health, compared to 109th in Canada or 105th in the leader, Iceland. In Russia women survive men an average of 10 years, and the life expectancy of these is 55. This implies that the average health will be made with a point (the highest note, reflects equality) plus a few extra tenths for getting out of the mean.
In the United States, the average salary is $ 40,000 a year, for both men and women (the best figures of the study in salary equality). However, this is reflected in the report with a point, the same note that a country obtains in which the male population attends considerably less than women to college or university. That is, unfavorable data for men would be rewarded numerically in the same way as equality.
Rwanda ranks 14th in equality in the economy, compared to 28 in Canada or 67 in Spain, probably due to the high percentage of women working in this country, in which the minimum wage in the tea industry is about 33 € per month. And in the case of Cuba (although it does not exceed the figures of the Rwandan parliament), its 49 parliamentarians have helped it to secure a position that surpasses that of Canada, even though it has unbeatable figures in education.
In spite of everything, this report of the World Economic Forum has a very positive effect: draws attention to the injustices that are committed against women in many countries of the world and the inequality of opportunities that they face in most of the planet. However, we must be careful if the rating system used rewards states such as Rwanda, Cuba or Burundi.
Marga Wesolowski
