Gender Gap in the Labour Market: the march to gender parity lags in our post-Covid world.

A couple of months ago , the World Economic Forum (WEF) published the 2023 edition of its Global Gender Gap Index survey. That document explores how the labour market is evolving as concerns equal or equitable representation of women and men. The key finding from this year’s report states that progress continues but is minimal. The measurement of parity between women and men in the global labour market rose by a mere 1% approximately. That said, there is some positive news on women in the labour market: they are returning to the workforce and have reached employment levels equal to or above those recorded pre-pandemic. However, challenges have come about related to accelerating the pace of women’s workplace participation and growth in their work roles. The WEF reports offers a lot of data to process, but I wanted to share a few findings that stood out for me and on which I think the recruitment and staffing industries could focus to support women’s growing and improved workforce involvement and inclusion.

Boost access to roles in traditional industries while offering access to new professional sectors

The WEF report shows that women continue to dominate the workforce in more "traditional" roles. This includes fields like healthcare and education where they outnumber men. Depending on the source you reference, women in the global job market account for anywhere between 38-41%  of global workers, but in healthcare and care services this figure stands at 64.7%; for education it is 54% and consumer services 51.8%. In public administration roles, the WEF reports that women and men have greater representational parity. In other sectors, like retail, real estate, accommodation and food, and financial services you see women’s participation in the 42-48% range. In the gas, oil and mining and infrastructure sectors, it drops to roughly one-quarter. The WEF notes that since 2020 women have been leaving the accommodation and food, retail and healthcare sectors, with significant departures in the financial services sector beginning as early as 2018.

Bring women into the formal economy and away from informal economy roles

The situation of course varies around the world but WEF data show that globally four out of five women are employed in informal work roles. This stands in contrast to just two out of five men, putting women at greater risk of lower financial and job security because working in the informal economy generally means less or no access to health insurance and pension security. Work done informally does not usually include contributions to government healthcare, social security or pension schemes. Likewise, in the informal economy contractual agreements for labour (work done) tend to be weak or even non-existent. And this again puts women at a disadvantage in terms of job and earning security. Together with traditional stereotypes and societal expectations of women in both the home and workforce, many women around the world face steep challenges to achieving full work participation primarily due to lack of proper care services (for basic health needs, for children, etc.) and this greatly limits their earning capacity: often when they need to work to support a family.

Support recruitment of more women to leadership roles

WEF research findings point out, with concern, that the presence and visibility of women in leadership roles is alarmingly low. Speaking here of top-level leadership (upper management and C-level positions), women’s representation is 10 percentage points below (approx. 32%) their overall labour market participation. Men outnumber women in leadership roles in key sectors like manufacturing, logistics and supply chain, agriculture, transportation and infrastructure. Although women have increased their presence in leadership positions continually since 2016, there remains a need to address a strong drop to the top phenomenon where the number of women in executive leadership functions slowly declines as you advance the upper most levels of the leadership hierarchy. For this reason, programmes like the WEF-backed DEI Lighthouse are critical in setting up support structures to place more qualified women candidates in top leadership roles and backing "hand-up" initiatives where women can mentor and support other women colleagues with the prospects and skills needed for success as leaders.

This group of findings from the WEF document does not give cause for great joy. But it looks like signs of progress are showing and ways to support labour market parity for women continue to be explored. This requires a concerted effort from business, HR departments and executive teams. We know that women’s participation in the workplace helps boost product and service innovation alongside overall earnings. Therefore, we need to take extra steps to make sure we support women in their professional development and workforce integration.