Women at Work: Progress Prevented

Females comprise almost half (49.7%) of the global population, yet they hold just a tiny percentage of control over community assets. In the 30 years since Beijing’s Fourth World Conference on Women, which sought to embed more equitable practices and strategies in national policies across the globe, achieving true progress for females has been challenging. In many cases, it’s moved slowly and incrementally. In other communities, it’s moved backward as newly installed governments intentionally limit women’s access to the resources they need to control their own destinies.

Equity is a Long Time Coming

For 60+ years, America (and the rest of the world) has grappled with ways to intentionally ‘level’ the business and corporate playing fields for underrepresented people, including those of color, the LGBTQ+ community, those who are differently abled, and females. Yet, despite spending billions of dollars in pursuit of thousands of policies, initiatives, and regulations, incoming data show that, in most cases, the shift toward equity for most target groups was minimal at best and, in some cases, non-existent.

Women as a class are a good population to use as a representative population when noting the delays in equity gains. They make up the largest ‘minority’ group on the planet, so what happens to them is often repeated in other disenfranchised groups and communities with fewer numbers. For example, women continue to be treated as ‘less valuable than’ their male counterparts despite demonstrative evidence that they are as intelligent, competent, and capable as men. Yet their earning power remains at only 82% of their male colleagues and has remained at that level for 20+ years.

Assessing the circumstances for women as leaders reveals how difficult it’s been for the gender to advance into higher levels of social policy determination and control:

• At the time of the 1995 Beijing conference, 11% of all elected officials were women. Thirty years later, that number has risen to just 26%.
• The number of female national leaders rose, too, (although not by much). Back then, only four countries had women at their helm; in 2024, that number had increased to 17. Those 17 countries represent less than 9% of the total 195 nations that exist today.
• Also, over these past 30 years, the accomplishments of women leaders have been limited to very specific economic sectors. Gains were minimal at best in the globe’s most influential arenas: finance, energy, and technology. As of 2024, women held just 1% of leadership positions in IPO entities, 2% in the energy realm, and less than 10% each in the finance, equities, climate, and health sectors.
• Making matters worse, in segments where the number of women is frequently higher than men, such as healthcare and education, women leaders are also suffering from a significant pay gap even though they have the same qualifications and offer the same benefits and values.

The small number of females holding significant leadership roles in global industries is startlingly slim, considering they comprise ~50% of the entire global population.

Advancing Women’s Equity Elevates the Economy, Too

Current data also reveals how biased and repressive policies damage the economy. Communities that intentionally limit the full expression of their human resource also deliberately shut off the countless new and innovative revenue streams that those unseen groups and individuals would generate. The policies also escalate community reliance on publicly funded social services because those who access them have no other options. Research shows that, in countries where these limitations are typical, they erode both the community’s and the nation’s economic futures.

In Pakistan, for example, women are at the mercy of the men who control virtually all public resources, from banks to business agencies to educational institutions. Those females who hope to gain more independence, economically and otherwise, are forced to seek support from entities that are not designed or interested in helping them – many of the barriers they face were intentionally injected into governing law and policy. Consequently, the would-be entrepreneurs often cannot access the capital, training, and networks they need to launch and grow their businesses.

Fortunately, there are organizations that are working to reverse both the rules that limit women and the policies that keep those rules in place. For example, the Center for Inclusive Growth (CARE) launched its Ignite Program (using funds from the Mastercard Impact Fund initiative) by providing critical capital resources to micro, small, and medium-sized businesses, most of which are owned by women. By doing so, the entity is building a solid foundation for small companies to thrive in communities where they would not have previously been allowed to exist. With a focus specifically on economic growth, the emerging strategy underscores how the whole community – men included – benefits when new woman-owned businesses are accepted and celebrated.

Further, it’s that access to capital that is having the most significant impact. Research by the Gates Foundation indicates that lack of access to capital is a significant obstacle for most women-owned companies, regardless of location. The Gates research suggests that the financial gap between these hyper-local enterprises and their male-run, larger corporations is as much as USD 5 trillion. Imagine the state of the global economy if these small but compelling companies were allowed to achieve their full potential.

Women make up half the population, yet too many existing rules and regulations were designed and remain in place with the specific intent of limiting their progress financially, economically, and socially. True equity for women won’t become the norm until the long-entrenched culture suppressing this critically important resource is dismantled.