We Need Gender Parity Urgently

According to McKinsey, women lost 54% of overall jobs these past two years — despite being just 39% of the global workforce.  The UN Sustainable Development Goals Report 2021 detailed meaningful losses in access to reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health services during the pandemic.  The report also determined that up to ten million more girls are at risk of child marriage, due to a combination of economic shocks, school closures, and interruptions in reproductive health services.  It’s no surprise, then, that the World Economic Forum now estimates it will take the world 136 years to close the gender gap.

That’s at least five generations from now. 

Those numbers do not account for the other crisis threatening women’s lives and livelihoods: climate change.  From floods to wildfires, extreme weather events impact the poorest and most vulnerable people first and worst — and women comprise 70% of the world’s poor.  As Verona Collantes, an intergovernmental specialist with UN Women, told Global Citizen, climate-related hazards “result in higher workloads for women, occupational hazards indoors and outdoors, psychological and emotional stress, and higher mortality compared to men.”

It has defined us for more than a century and will drive our work in the 21st century and beyond.  We live that value internally, too.  When I look across our organization, I’m proud to see so many colleagues who identify as female succeeding, at every level and on every team.  Over half of the Foundation’s employees, managers, and senior leaders are women.

We’re going to keep working hard to advance gender equity through RF’s programs. And I hope that you will join us in ensuring that gender parity arrives within our daughters’ lifetimes.