{"id":1896,"date":"2017-03-08T13:00:26","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1896"},"modified":"2017-03-09T13:15:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T12:15:06","slug":"the-costs-of-gender-inequality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2017\/03\/08\/the-costs-of-gender-inequality\/","title":{"rendered":"The Costs of Gender Inequality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nigerian women present an interesting contrast: they are strong and powerful but at the same time their social status is that of their husband. <strong>Gender inequality<\/strong> remains a big issue in <strong>sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) <\/strong>\u2013 as in so many other countries, for that matter. One step at a time, the situation may improve. Organizations like <a href=\"http:\/\/mujeresporafrica.es\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Mujeres por \u00c1frica<\/strong><\/a> (Women for Africa) contribute to such a change.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gender inequality<\/strong> translates into a huge drag on <strong>socio-economic<\/strong> development. For instance, when a society leaves half of its population behind in terms of opportunities and recognition, an important part of its potential for new <strong>ideas<\/strong> and <strong>motion<\/strong> vanishes with it. Let\u2019s take a look at the <a href=\"http:\/\/hdr.undp.org\/en\/content\/gender-inequality-index-gii\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>index for gender inequality<\/strong> <\/a>that the <strong>United Nations<\/strong> publishes across countries. It measures gender inequalities in <strong>3 important aspects of human development<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Reproductive health<\/strong>, measured by maternal mortality ratio and adolescent birth rates.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Empowerment<\/strong>, measured by the proportion of parliamentary seats occupied by females, and the proportion of adult females and males with at least some secondary education.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Economic status<\/strong>, measured by the rate of participation labor force of female and male populations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The top performers in the world are <strong>Slovenia<\/strong>, <strong>Switzerland<\/strong> and <strong>Germany<\/strong> with values of <strong>gender inequality below 0.05<\/strong>. In the SSA region, we can easily highlight <strong>Rwanda<\/strong>, <strong>Namibia<\/strong>, <strong>South<\/strong> <strong>Africa<\/strong>, <strong>Botswana<\/strong> and <strong>Burundi<\/strong> as the <strong>most gender-equal<\/strong> countries in SSA, with <strong>scores below 0.5<\/strong>. On the other hand, <strong>Chad<\/strong>, <strong>C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire<\/strong>, <strong>Mali<\/strong>, <strong>Liberia<\/strong> and <strong>Sierra Leone<\/strong> are the <strong>most-gender unequal<\/strong> with <strong>scores above 0.65<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1900\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1900\" style=\"width: 701px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2017\/03\/Women-in-Africa.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1900\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2017\/03\/Women-in-Africa-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"During an informal meeting with alumni from Lagos Business School\" width=\"701\" height=\"526\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2017\/03\/Women-in-Africa-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2017\/03\/Women-in-Africa-500x375.jpg 500w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2017\/03\/Women-in-Africa.jpg 744w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 701px) 100vw, 701px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1900\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">During an informal meeting with alumni from Lagos Business School<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As we have mentioned before, when a society systematically sets aside a large fraction of its own population, it ends up missing a lot of opportunities to build upon these lost minds and ideas. So, it\u2019s not surprising that the <strong>top-10 countries with the lowest gender inequality <\/strong>index in SSA <strong>score<\/strong> well above the average in terms of entrepreneurship and development, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/thegedi.org\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute (GEDI) index<\/strong><\/a>, whereas the <strong>10 countries with the highest gender inequality scores<\/strong> significantly lower.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fighting gender inequality<\/strong> is not fair both for moral reasons and for socioeconomic development. It\u2019s a must in order to <strong>stop destroying potential ideas. <\/strong>The problem needs to be tackled from its origins at the <strong>education system<\/strong> to its latter stages in the <strong>working place<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Initiatives such as those <strong>Mujeres por \u00c1frica<\/strong> leads are important to this end. \u00a0They tackle key areas where gender inequality hits the most:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Education<\/strong>: they provide great scholarships to prospect African women to study in Spain;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Knowledge<\/strong>: they support African women in their access to scientific investigation centers;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Health<\/strong>: they lead informative campaigns regarding malaria and other transmittable diseases related to sanitation conditions;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Economic development<\/strong>: they lead programs, such as the Launch &amp; Grow, designed to exploit all women potential through an intensive course and a mentoring process.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Empowerment<\/strong>: they gathered women leaders around Africa to discuss about leadership and governance with other world leaders such as John Kerry, Samantha Power or Janet Yellen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Would you like to share your views on gender inequality?<\/p>\n<p><em>Nadim Elayan, Research Assistant at IESE Business School, collaborated in this article.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>_______________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p><u>Related articles<\/u><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2016\/03\/09\/green-voices-empowering-women-to-fight-climate-change\/\">Green Voices: Empowering women to fight climate change<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/05\/27\/women-for-africa\/\">Women for Africa<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/03\/04\/african-women-a-force-for-peace\/\">African Women \u2013 a Force for Peace<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/10\/29\/african-women-a-paradox\/\">African women: a paradox<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nigerian women present an interesting contrast: they are strong and powerful but at the same time their social status is that of their husband. Gender inequality remains a big issue in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) \u2013 as in so many other countries, for that matter. One step at a time, the situation may improve. Organizations like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99579,100235,99106,93551],"tags":[157,7961,93551],"class_list":["post-1896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-african-economic-and-institutional-context","category-differences-within-africa","category-future-and-perspectives-for-africa","category-women-in-africa","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-gender-inequality","tag-women-in-africa","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1896"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1902,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1896\/revisions\/1902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}