THE GENDER SNAPSHOT 2022
PROGRESS ON THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
LEAVE NO WOMAN OR GIRL BEHIND
Achieving universal, high-quality education for all girls remains out of reach
Decades of research leave no doubt about the direct and indirect benefits of educating girls and young women, which include faster poverty reduction, better maternal health, lower child mortality, greater HIV prevention and reduced violence against women.
Girls’ right to education is integral to virtually every aspect of development, including economic growth and prosperity. Each additional year of schooling can boost a girl’s earnings as an adult by up to 20 per cent. Globally, transformative gains in girls’ education have unfolded in recent decades. Girls’ learning outcomes have, on average, caught up to those of boys and in some cases surpassed them. But for girls from the poorest households and in rural areas, the trajectory has not been equal or transformative.
A sample of 29 countries with recent data on upper secondary school completion by sex, location and wealth uncovered gaps in completion rates among the poorest rural girls and the richest urban girls ranging from 11.5 to 72.2 percentage points. The path for girls facing discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, migration status and/or disability likewise diverges from the aggregate.
Data from 42 countries found that children with disabilities had less access to early childhood education than children without disabilities. The disparity was greater for girls with disabilities. Only 18 per cent of girls with one or more functioning difficulties attended an early childhood education programme compared to 28 per cent of girls without functional difficulties. Pandemic-related disruptions to education systems further exacerbated access and deepened learning inequalities for vulnerable groups of girls and young women.
Steered away from STEM, girls miss opportunities in tech and innovation
Biased gender norms and stereotypes, embedded in curricula, textbooks, and teaching and learning practices, derail girls’ choices of what to study in school, and ultimately, their careers and employment opportunities as adults.
Globally, young women outnumber young men in tertiary education. Yet women are a minority of students in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education, at only 35 per cent, and in information and communication technology studies, at just 3 per cent.
Countries, where girls are at the top of the mathematics skill distribution in lower secondary school, have higher shares of women in STEM professions. But overall, across countries, girls are systematically steered away from science and math careers. Teachers and parents, intentionally or otherwise, perpetuate biases around areas of education and work best “suited” for women and men.
A 2020 study of Filipina girls demonstrated that loss of interest in STEM subjects started as early as age 10, when girls began perceiving STEM careers as male-dominated and believing that girls are naturally less adept in STEM subjects.
The relative lack of female STEM role models reinforced such perceptions. Globally, women make up just 19.9 per cent of science and engineering professionals. Such low representation is compounded by a work environment that is typically male-centric, inflexible and exclusionary, making the field less attractive to women and other underrepresented groups. It is a vicious cycle.
In Asia and the Pacific, one study revealed that 44 per cent of women in STEM occupations who had caring responsibilities did not have flexible work arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gaps in STEM education and careers are larger for women and girls doubly disadvantaged by the intersection of gender with other vulnerabilities. In the United States of America,
Black and Hispanic women in STEM jobs earn about $20,000 a year less than the average for STEM jobs and about $33,000 less than their white male counterparts.
Progress in poverty reduction has reversed with women and girls paying a large price
Extreme poverty is projected to deepen for women and girls globally. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the share of people living on less than $1.90 a day had fallen from 11.2 per cent in 2013 to 8.6 per cent in 2018. COVID-19 derailed this progress, with the rate expected to rise to around 9 per cent in 2022. By the end of 2022, around 383 million women and girls will live in extreme poverty compared to 368 million men and boys. More than 8 in 10 are in sub-Saharan Africa (62.8 per cent) and Central Asia and Southern Asia (21.4 per cent). If current trends continue, by 2030, more women and girls will live in extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa than do today.
Higher international poverty lines reveal an even grimmer picture. In 2022, a projected 938 million women and girls live on less than $3.20 a day and 1.7 billion on less than $5.50 a day. In the Philippines, 33 million women and girls subsist on less than $5.50 a day. For many, poverty puts essential services such as piped water and clean cooking fuel out of reach. Such deprivations propel other gender inequalities as women spend more time on unpaid care and domestic work. Each week, Filipina women from the poorest households can devote up to seven hours to collecting firewood and two hours to collecting water safe enough to drink. Inadequate access to decent work and social protection perpetuates poverty. In 2019, 7.1 per cent of employed women aged 15 and older lived in extreme poverty compared to 6.5 per cent of men. While social protection measures expanded during COVID-19, most were short term and gender blind. In 2020, over 4 billion people lacked social protection cash benefits. Only 44.9 per cent of working mothers have maternity cash benefits.
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