Gender Discrimination In

Economy

HASSAN IBRAHIM TELA

BSc PSYCHOLOGY (2ND SEMESTER)
Gender Discrimination In Economy
The extent of gender inequality is a concern within the international community.

The Workshop, The Hague identified eight relevant dimensions in which gender inequalities appear:
 Gender identity: describes the roles of gender and cultural issues such as the socialization of girls and
boys.
 Physical integrity: refers to the absence of violence against women, to control their sexuality and access
to contraception
 The family describes inequalities : inequality in family law, parental authority, inheritance and the
percentage of households headed by women.
 Policy: political power describes the political representation and decision making
 Education: access to education
 Health: Access to health care is measured against life expectancy and maternal mortality rate
 Eonomicomic resources include access to land, economic resources and other assets
 The employment and income: refers to the distribution of paid and unpaid wage differentials formal and
informal
Gender inequality and women's empowerment are among the objectives of milestone
development goals (MDGs). Despite this, gender inequality can be observed in almost
all developing countries and even in developed countries. Gender inequality in
education can prevent the reduction of fertility rates, infant mortality rates and may
also have negative effects on children's education and health. It can also affect
economic growth through a number of channels.
Gender inequality in education is found to have negative effects on economic growth
by reducing the average amount of human capital and the exclusion of talented girls
educational opportunities that could do better than boys. It is suggested that
educational inequality based on gender downgrades the quality of human capital and
the slowdown of economic growth.
Gender Pay Gap

One of the dimensions of gender Discrimination is employment gap . The employment

gender gap is one of the main determinants of growth differentials between countries. The
low participation of women in some regions, particularly the Middle East and North Africa
can be described as a major cause of underdevelopment

1) Men Earn More Than Women

Men tend to earn more than women in most countries. That is, there is a ‘gender pay
gap’.

Differences in pay capture differences along many possible dimensions, including worker
education, experience and occupation
As we can see: (i) in most countries the gap is positive; and (ii) there are large differences in the
size of this gap across countries.
2) In most countries the gender pay gap has decreased in the last
couple of decades

How is the gender pay gap changing over time? To answer this question, let’s
consider the following chart. These estimates include OECD member states, as well
as some other non-member countries.
Here we see that the gap is large in most OECD countries, but it has been going
down in the last couple of decades. In some cases the reduction is remarkable. In the
UK, for example, the gap went down from almost 50% in 1970 to about 17% in 2016.

3) The gender pay gap is larger if we account for gender differences in

employment

In all the charts above the gender pay gap is taken only with respect to men and
women who are employed. If we estimate the unadjusted pay gap assigning zero
income to people who are not employed, we get a much larger pay gap, since
employment-to-population ratios tend to be much higher for men than for women.
The next chart shows the unadjusted pay gaps under this alternative approach
whereby individuals who are not employed are assigned zero income.
4) Women tend to be underrepresented in senior managerial positions

The chart plots the proportion of women in senior and middle management positions
around the world. It shows that women all over the world are underrepresented in
high-profile jobs, which tend to be better paid.
5) Women in rich countries tend to be overrepresented in low-paying
jobs
In many countries women are at the same time overrepresented in low-paying
jobs.This is shown in the chart.
6) Top incomes: Male are dominant
What does gender inequality look like if we focus on the very top of the income
distribution? Do we find any evidence of the so-called ‘glass ceiling’ preventing
women from reaching the top? The two following charts allow us to answer
 •Women are greatly under-represented in top income groups – they make
up much less than 50% across each of the nine countries. Within the top
1% women account for around 20% and there is surprisingly little
variation across countries.
 •The proportion of women is lower the higher you look up the income
distribution. In the top 10% up to every third income-earner is a woman; in
the top 0.1% only every fifth or tenth person is a woman.
 • Women are now better-represented in all top income groups than they
were in 2000.
 • But improvements have generally been more limited at the very top.
With the exception of Australia, we see a much smaller increase in the
share of women amongst the top 0.1% than amongst the top 10%.
 • Overall, we continue to see remarkably few women making it to the top
of the income distribution today.
7)Women often have no control over their personal earned income

 The chart plots cross-country estimates of

the share of women who are not involved in
decisions about their own income. The line
shows national averages, while the dots
show averages for rich and poor
households.
 As we can see, in many countries,
particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia,
a large fraction of women are not involved in
household decisions about spending their
personal earned income. They are not freely
allowed to decide and use money for their
own use. And this pattern is stronger among
low-income households within low-income
countries
8) Land ownership is more often in the hands of men

 Economic inequalities between men and women manifest themselves, not only in
terms of wages earned, but also in terms of assets owned. For example, as the
chart shows, in nearly all low and middle-income countries with data, men are
more likely to own land than women.
 Women’s lack of control over important household assets, such as land, can be a
critical problem in case of divorce or the husband’s death. In several countries
women don’t have same rights with men.
9) The motherhood penalty

 Lundborg, Plug and Rasmussen summarise their findings as follows: “Our main finding
is that women who are successfully treated by [in vitro fertilization] earn persistently
less because of having children. We explain the decline in annual earnings by women
working less when children are young and getting paid less when children are older.
We explain the decline in hourly earnings, which is often referred to as the
motherhood penalty, by women moving to lower-paid jobs that are closer to home.”
 The fact that the motherhood penalty is indeed about ‘motherhood’ and not
‘parenthood’, is supported by further evidence:
 A recent study, also from Denmark, tracked men and women over the period 1980-
2013, and found that after the first child, women’s earnings sharply dropped and never
fully recovered. But this was not the case for men with children, nor the case for
women without children.
Summarize

This leading issue of discrimination and bias has always existed and the world has
been fighting ever since against it.
The huge costs of depriving women and girls of rights and opportunities are borne
not only by women and girls themselves, but also by their families, communities, and
the entire economy. By investing in women and girls and ending gender inequality,
we can eliminate those costs and change the fate of entire countries.There is no
doubt that ensuring that women and girls enjoy the same rights and opportunities as
men and boys is the right thing to do from a moral and ethical standpoint. But it also
makes economic sense – $160 trillion worth, to be precise
 If women are to participate equally in the labor force, we first need to ensure that
they have the right tools. That means guaranteeing that all women and girls have
access to health care and information, proper nutrition, and safe and effective
learning environments at all levels. It also means upholding sexual and
reproductive rights and combating sexual and gender-based violence, including
harmful practices like child, early, or forced marriage.
 But that is not enough to improve women’s employment opportunities and
earnings. We must also take collective action to reduce the amount of time
women spend in unpaid work; to ensure they have access to and control over
productive assets like land, credit, insurance, and savings; and to address the
restrictive social norms that relegate women to lower-paid or informal work.
The End