https://www.whitehouse.gov/wgdp/women-prospering-workforce/
Women Prospering in the Workforce
Workforce Development, Vocational Education, and Skills Training
The Goal
Increase women’s global labor force participation and advancement in the workplace by providing women with quality education, training, and support, so they can secure and thrive in well-paying jobs in their local economies.
A healthy global economy is critical to America’s economic and national security, and depends upon the economic contributions of both women and men. Around the world, women’s labor force participation rates are unequal to men’s, decent work opportunities are far too limited, and significant gender pay gaps in the labor market remain. Growing evidence reveals that women’s low participation in the formal labor markets of developing countries impedes economic growth and poverty reduction.
Many women face multiple barriers when trying to enter, remain, or advance in the workforce. The problem starts early, as societal norms and expectations often keep girls and women from pursuing education and skills training. Globally, women are more likely than men to shoulder the time burden of unpaid activities, such as cleaning the home, caring for children and elders, and collecting clean water. These practices often prevent them from obtaining education, training, and skills needed to enter into higher-wage, high-growth occupations, such as science, technology, engineering, and math (“STEM”) where men are disproportionately employed. For instance, women make up nearly half of the agricultural labor force in many African countries, but without equal access to adequate training and certifications, women are often working in the lowest-paid roles and tending low-value crops. With a more level playing field, female farmers could increase their yields, feeding their families and more people around the globe.
Women also face less access to digital services, which can be a platform for training, employment, and financial services, facilitating women’s economic empowerment. More than 1.7 billion women in low and middle-income countries still do not own a mobile phone, and they are 26% less likely to use mobile internet than men. These factors reinforce women’s economic inequality.
Women’s economic empowerment and equality exist in the workforce when women receive the same market-relevant education and vocational opportunities as men and boys, and, once in the workforce, have the ability to organize work for enhanced productivity and compete on equal terms for job openings, advancement, and retention with equal pay for work.
2 Women Succeeding as Entrepreneurs
Access to Capital, Markets, Networks, and Mentorship
The Goal
Increase the access of women entrepreneurs and business owners to financing, market opportunities, and training to establish and grow their businesses.
Women entrepreneurs are a growing market force, serving as a critical source of innovation and job creation and fueling economic growth. However, women-owned businesses do not have equal access to the capital needed to stabilize or expand. There is a roughly $300 billion credit gap for women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”) globally. In many countries, immature or underdeveloped financial systems do not adequately serve the “missing middle,” such as women-owned SMEs that have financial needs beyond micro-finance and whose assets do not qualify them for larger commercial loans. Solving this problem requires not only long-term, systemic reforms, but also short-term financial mechanisms that can address immediate needs. Few financial intermediaries are able to address these short-term needs without some form of external assistance.
Women entrepreneurs in the developing world also lack access to markets, market information, digital and personal services, networks, mentorship, and other resources that enable them to overcome the obstacles of starting and growing firms as well as connecting with buyers. As with finance, some of these barriers are systemic, and others are more individualized. Systemic barriers require institutional reforms.
Individualized solutions require development of public and private sector partnerships that can provide the training or assistance needed, including, in some cases, to help organize and formalize individual women entrepreneurs into cooperatives to achieve economies of scale.
Women’s economic empowerment and equality exist when women entrepreneurs enjoy equal access to the same affordable financing mechanisms that men do, including both credit and equity, as well as equal access to markets, market information, digital technology, and services.
3
Women Enabled in the Economy
Remove Restrictive Legal, Regulatory, and Cultural Barriers
The environment for economic activity in any country often includes numerous barriers that disadvantage women as they pursue employment, business, and investment opportunities. Broadly defined, the enabling environment for women in the economy encompasses the legal and regulatory framework, policies and practices (public and private sector), and social norms that support women to operate in the formal economy, or improve basic conditions for women working in the informal economy. Conversely, each of these factors, if not addressed, can stunt women’s economic empowerment.
Women are frequently discouraged and often effectively barred from economic engagement by disproportionate burdens of unpaid care, gender-based violence, underinvestment in their education, need for spousal approval for employment, and legal barriers to participation in certain professions. Some of the economic barriers women face arise from foundational limitations, such as laws that limit women’s rights to inherit, own property, or enter contracts in their own name. Reducing those barriers while ensuring women have the legal and policy protections they need requires deliberate efforts by government, private sector, and civil society.
The benefits of women in the economy are substantial. Countries with greater balance of men and women in the workplace and workforce have greater growth, innovation, and stability. The same goes for firms: those with a stronger ratio of women in leadership, management, and the workforce outperform those with fewer women. While only five percent of the CEOs in Africa are women, the positive impact of female leadership is clear: businesses in Africa with the most women on their boards have an operating profit over 20 percent higher than industry averages. Improvements in the enabling environment increase economic opportunities for all women in that economy, which in turn benefits their families, communities, firms, and nations as a whole through broad-based economic growth and development.
Women’s economic empowerment is also integral to our collective security. The larger the opportunity gap between men and women, the more likely a country is to be involved in violent conflict. Conversely, nations in which women have equal opportunities are more likely to thrive and solve challenges peacefully.
Women’s economic empowerment and equality exists when the enabling environment reduces the barriers women face to participating in the economy, whether those are legal, regulatory, or cultural.
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