Gender inequality 'a huge waste of talent'
Updated
A new global report on gender equality has found that women are still less likely than men to get top political and decision-making roles. The report from the World Economic Forum looked at the status of women in 130 countries, and says its findings show huge amounts of talent are simply going to waste.
Presenter: Lily Yan
Speakers: Report co-author Saadia Zahidi; Associate Professor Suzanne Frankway, University of South Australia
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LILY YAN: The Global Gender Gap Report covers 130 countries and 92% of the world's population. Just as last year Nordic countries once again lead the way on the index, championed by Norway, Finland and Sweden while Saudi Arabia, Chad and Yemen are at the bottom. Saadia Zahidi, co-author of the report, says her team was encouraged by the overall improvement in the surveyed countries.
SAADIA ZAHIDI: We see that over two-thirds of them are actually performing better than they were last year. So on average the majority of the world is doing better than it was before.
LILY YAN: The report shows that women overall have nearly the same access to health care and education but their representation in politics and business remains low. Saadia Zahidi says this is a great waste of human resources.
SAADIA ZAHIDI: Women make up half of the human resources available to any country. If that half is not being channelled into the economy and not being made part of decision-making processes then that country's economic potential is bound to suffer.
LILY YAN: Saadia Zahidi calls for all countries to fully utilise women's talents particularly now the world is going through one of its worst financial crises.
SAADIA ZAHIDI: But what we do know from historical data is that every time there is an economic downturn it's women's employment that suffers more than that of men. It's in fact the opposite that should be happening. As business leaders and policy-makers seek to navigate their way through the current crisis, they need the talents of both women and men more than ever to come up with the best solutions.
LILY YAN: Among listed Asian countries only the Philippines and Sri Lanka made the top 20, placed 6th and 12th respectively. Associate Professor Suzanne Franzway is from the Gender Studies Centre at the University of South Australia. She says it's no surprise these two developing countries are among the top performers.
SUZANNE FRANZWAY: Probably the main reason for it is that it's based on quite reasonable literacy rates but in both countries it has to do with women's participation in the workforce, in the paid workforce. And in both cases you can see that it's actually quite high. In the Philippines you do have women in parliament, a reasonable proportion of them - about a quarter.
LILY YAN: For other Asian countries, China improved its ranking from last year's No 73 to 57. Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Korea and India are towards the bottom while Pakistan comes last among Asian nations ranked 127th out of 130. Professor Franzway says the rights for women will only begin by continuous campaigns and men in the society have to be prepared for the changes.
SUZANNE FRANZWAY: People think, "Oh, in the next generation it will change." Well, that's not true. Each generation has to campaign and organise for these changes to be made and it will mean that it does impact on men as well. Women can't gain equality without it having some impact on men.
