Women lost more jobs than their male counterparts across the globe during the Covid-19 pandemic and it will take decades to close the gender parity and pay gap.
The average Women in Work Index compiled by PwC saw the score across the 33 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries fall for the first time to 64 (from 64.5 in 2019). PwC released the data in conjunction with International Women’s Day 2022.
Some 4.3 million more women became unemployed and an additional 3.2 million left the labour force between 2019 and 2020. Women in the United States, Canada, Chile and Iceland were the hardest hit.For the first time, New Zealand tops the Women in Work Index with Luxembourg and Slovenia taking second and third place.
The future is about increasing women’s participation in the transition to net zero as it is key to closing the employment gap.
It is vital that governments and businesses incorporate a gender and equality lens into their net zero strategies to ensure women and other marginalised groups are accounted for and are part of the solution in mitigating climate change.
Without this, the effects of climate change could further delay reaching gender equality and widen the employment gap between men and women across the OECD, it said.
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