G7 UK 2021: A unique opportunity to shape a global inclusive Recovery

The world is experiencing profound transformations which are particularly salient in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. At the Women’s Forum for the Economy & Society, we are convinced that women should be the leading force to shape the new world that humanity needs, and the drivers to promote sustainable growth.

This is why in 2020, we were proud to launch the Women’s Forum Call to Action for an Inclusive Recovery, encouraging the G7 Leaders to develop and implement strategic policies in order to build a more inclusive economy and society.

Now, in this new context, we are reinforcing this Call to Action, addressing the G7 Leaders, both from the public and private sectors, on the occasion of the G7 Summit 2021 under the UK presidency, whose priorities are to shape the global recovery from Covid-19 by championing shared values.

We are in a momentum: a change of paradigm. We have to design a truthful She-Covery for All, uniting women and men’s perspectives and expertise to address global challenges.

The G7 Leaders should envision women’s economic empowerment as a key strategy. Indeed, women contribute to only 34% of worldwide wealth and the social and economic gender divide is still prevalent.

Moreover, according to the Women’s Forum Barometer 2021, stereotypes are still very strong: 50% of the G7 population believes that women can't have it all and, if they want to be good mothers, they have to accept to partly sacrifice their professional careers. It is also evident that inequalities are being exacerbated by this pandemic, which is disproportionately impacting women, but we believe that there is also an opportunity for radical changes.

We call on the G7 Leaders to lead by example and collectively foster women’s leadership so that they can have the same opportunities as men to be at the heart of the world of tomorrow. 

We focus on 7 key issues where women’s added value and contribution are paramount: Business, Future of Work, Tech4Good, Work-Life Balance, Governance, Climate and Health. These issues are strictly connected to each other and in all these crucial fields, women should be fully involved. Therefore, the only way to strengthen the potential for women’s empowerment globally is to tackle them simultaneously.

We must act now! The public is ready: 90% of the G7 population is convinced that closing the gender gap should be addressed as a top priority.

Let’s engage for impact!

Discover the full report here.

1. Business

Recommendation n°1: Boost access to capital for women entrepreneurs.

Reality:

• There are around 224 million women entrepreneurs in the world, representing 35% of the firms in the global economy. [1]
• A $300 billion gap in financing exists for formal, women-owned small businesses. [2]

Perception – Women’s Forum G7 Barometer 2021:

• 7% of women are considering starting their own business and 6% are confident they could access the money to invest in starting a business.

Action plan:

➔ Develop policies to provide equal access to public and private financing for women entrepreneurs.

➔ Encourage gender-balanced investment teams.

➔ Provide specific training for investment teams to eliminate gender discrimination based on stereotypes.

➔ Leverage public procurement to support women entrepreneurs in supply chains.

➔ Create a tracking working group gathering women business networks in order to monitor and assess the progress achieved in G7 countries concerning female entrepreneurship.

2. Future of Work

Recommendation n°2: Attract and retain girls and women in STEM.

Reality:

• Women represent 20% of engineers globally. [3]
• 11% of employees in the cybersecurity sector are women. [4]

Perception – Women’s Forum G7 Barometer 2021:

•  81% of the G7 population think that more women in STEM fields would be a means to involving them in the transformation of the society.

Action plan:

➔ Launch regular national campaigns to promote the attractiveness of STEM skills for girls and women.

➔ Build a scientific identity of young girls from primary school onwards, raising parents and teachers’ awareness.

➔ Establish quantified objectives to achieve gender parity in STEM higher education, with financial incentives conditional upon progress achieved.

➔ Put in place lifelong reskilling, cross-skilling and upskilling programmes for women in STEM, including women-only training sessions and mentoring.

➔ Scale up and support, including through specific tax policies, successful initiatives that have already been put in place by the private sector, associations and NGOs.

3. Tech4Good

Recommendation n°3: Promote inclusive technology by applying a gender lens to Artificial Intelligence.

Reality:

• Women make up 32% of the workforce in Data and AI. [5]
• 14% of the Cloud Computing workforce are women. [6]

 Perception – Women’s Forum G7 Barometer 2021:

• 77% of people think that having more women in tech sectors would help to develop digital applications and AI tools that benefit everyone.

Action plan:

➔ Guarantee the inclusion of women in the conception and development of human-centered AI applications.

➔ Ensure the use of gender-disaggregated data to build AI technologies.

➔ Launch global alliances with key AI stakeholders for a homogeneous implementation of inclusive AI applications worldwide.

➔ Create a targeted research tax credit allocated to companies fostering gender diversity in AI conception and development teams.

➔ Acknowledge companies investing in AI research aimed to empower women, through dedicated incentives.

4. Work-Life Balance

Recommendation n°4: Ensure the most favorable environment for equal and enduring career opportunities for all.

Reality:

• On average across OECD countries, mothers are entitled to just over 18 weeks of paid maternity leave around childbirth, with the exception of the US. [7]
• On average, OECD countries offer just over a week of paid paternity leave. [8]

Perception – Women’s Forum G7 Barometer 2021:

• 64% of those surveyed believe that “it is more difficult for a woman than for a man to have a successful career because she has to accept to sacrifice part of her family life”.

Action plan:

➔ Create a gender equality index made of transparency indicators monitoring gender diversity in careers and equal pay at all levels and sectors, on a yearly basis.

➔ Provide a wider flexibility at work and increased childcare and eldercare services.

➔ Guarantee a mandatory and fully paid maternity leave in all G7 countries.

➔ Implement a mandatory and fully paid paternity leave of two weeks, including two days prior to the delivery date, in all G7 countries.

➔ Encourage concrete measures to support an equal division of household management and unpaid work, especially in light of the lessons learned from the Covid-19 crisis.

5. Governance

Recommendation n°5: Guarantee gender equal representation in public and private governance bodies.

Reality:

• Women represent 26.1% of some 35,500 parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 ministers worldwide. [9]
• The share of women on boards of listed companies represents 26,7% globally. [10]

Perception – Women’s Forum G7 Barometer 2021:

• 78% of people are convinced that if women had a better access to senior management positions of large companies, this would benefit companies’ reputation and public image.

Action plan:

➔ Achieve gender parity in national Parliaments, ministerial positions and in public administration, both at the national and local level. 

➔ Increase the participation of women in international negotiating tables, including as diplomats.

➔ Develop an appropriate leadership pipeline of women in the governance of public and private companies built upon strong talent pools.

➔ Establish quotas and achievable objectives in order to reach equal representation of women and men on boards.

➔ Promote equal access to leadership, in a granular way, at all levels and in all sectors.

 6. Climate

Recommendation n°6: Foster women’s engagement in positive and impactful environmental actions.

Reality:

• Women are 14 times more likely to die during climate-related disasters. [11]
• Women represent 80% of climate refugees. [12]

Perception – Women’s Forum G7 Barometer 2021:

• 64% of women believe that the more institutions take action to address climate change, the better they feel about them.

Action plan:

➔ Develop gender-disaggregated data to highlight the gender and climate nexus.

➔ Include a clear gender lens to the conception and implementation of climate strategies and solutions.

➔ Establish a G7-coordinated and efficient response to the climate challenges disproportionately affecting women.

➔ Enable girls and women to have access to a comprehensive climate-related education.

➔ Drive climate-related public funding towards initiatives aiming at mitigating negative impacts on women.

7. Health

Recommendation n°7: Design new inclusive healthcare systems by integrating women’s contribution and specificities, equally benefitting women and men.

 Reality:

• Women are more than 70% of the health workforce worldwide but only 25% of senior roles. [13]
• Depressive disorders account for 41.9 % of all cases of disability resulting from neuropsychiatric disorders among women, as compared to 29.3 % among men. [14]

 Perception – Women’s Forum G7 Barometer 2021:

• 59% of women have experienced burnout, anxiety or depression, compared to 50% of men.

 Action plan:

➔ Ensure that women fully participate in decision-making processes at the highest level, including in health policy design.

➔ Research, measure and monitor the predominant diseases affecting women in the different stages of their lives.

➔ Implement the necessary actions for ensuring a healthy lifetime, starting from setting up equal access to prevention policies. 

➔ Address mental health issues as a critical disease and a pressing social and economic challenge.

➔ Ensure that the health workforce is adequately deployed, managed, safely equipped, and rewarded, as well as unpaid caregivers.

Bibliography:

1. World Bank (2018) World Development Indicators.
2. International Finance Corporation, World Bank Group (2017) Bridging the Gender Gap in Access to Finance.
3. World Economic Forum (2021) Global Gender Gap Report.
4. Forbes (2018) Cybersécurité et Numérique : Où sont les femmes ?
5. World Economic Forum (2021) Global Gender Gap Report.
6. Ibid, 2021.
7. OECD (2019) Family Database: Parental leave systems.
8. Ibid, 2019.
9. World Economic Forum (2021) Global Gender Gap Report.
10. OECD (2020) Employment: Female share of seats on boards of the largest publicly listed companies.
11. UN Women (2018) Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
12. UNDP and Climate Change (2016) Scaling Up Climate Action to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
13. World Economic Forum (2020) Delivered by women, led by men: a gender and equity analysis of the global health and social workforce. 
14. WHO (2020) Gender and women’s mental health.