The world shows no improvement in the level of prejudice shown against women over the past decade, with almost nine out of 10 men and women worldwide, still holding such biases, according to a new UN report.
“Half of people worldwide still believe men make better political leaders than women, and more than 40 per cent believe men make better business executives than women,” according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in its latest Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) report.
“Social norms that impair women’s rights are detrimental to society more broadly, dampening the expansion of human development,” said Pedro Conceição, head of UNDP’s Human Development Report Office.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE
The report states that a staggering 25 per cent of people believe it is justified for a man to beat his wife. The UNDP report argues that these biases drive hurdles faced by women, manifested in a dismantling of women’s rights in many parts of the world with movements against gender equality gaining traction and, in some countries, a surge of human rights violations.
WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP
Even though many formal barriers to women holding political office have been removed in most countries, gender gaps in political representation remain high. On average, the share of heads of state or government who are women has remained around 10 percent worldwide since 1995, and women hold just over a quarter of parliament seats globally.2 Women leaders are often judged more harshly than their male counterparts. When women become leaders, changes in social norms can go either towards greater acceptance of women’s leadership or towards a stronger backlash against women
BROKEN LINKS IN PROGRESS
The report also sheds light on a broken link between women’s progress in education and economic empowerment. Women are more skilled and educated than ever before. However, even in the 59 countries where women are now more educated than men, the average gender income gap remains a 39 per cent in favour of men.
“Lack of progress on gender social norms is unfolding against a human development crisis,” Conceição said, noting that the global Human Development Index (HDI) declined in 2020 for the first time on record and again the following year.
“Everyone stands to gain from ensuring freedom and agency for women,” he added.
This second GSNI report, capturing data up to 2022, shows little overall progress, despite powerful global and local campaigns for women’s rights in recent years, such as Me Too, Ni UnaMenos, Time’s Up and Un Violador en Tu Camino.
WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
Recent evidence shows a broken link between women’s access to educationand achievements in economic empowerment. Today, average income gaps between women and men are correlated more strongly with measures of gender social norms than with gaps in education. In countries with higher bias in gender social norms, women spend more time than men—as much as six times as much—on domestic chores and care work.
GOVERNMENTS’ CRUCIAL ROLE
The governments have a crucial role in shifting gender social norms, from adopting parental leave policies that have changed perceptions around care work responsibilities, to labour market reforms that have led to a change in beliefs around women in the workforce.
“An important place to start is recognizing the economic value of unpaid care work,” said Raquel Lagunas, Director of UNDP’s gender team.
“This can be a very effective way of challenging gender norms around how care work is viewed. In countries with the highest levels of gender biases against women, it is estimated that women spend over six times as much time as men on unpaid care work.”
WHAT IS THE GENDER SOCIAL NORMS INDEX?
The Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) captures beliefs on gender equality in capabilities and rights. First introduced in the 2019 Human Development Report, it differs from achievement-based objective measures of gender equality, which assess gender gaps in terms of outcomes.1 By focusing on beliefs, biases and prejudices, it provides an in-depth account of the root causes of gender inequality that hinder progress for women and girls.2 The GSNI is calculated using data from the World Values Survey (WVS).3 It covers four key dimensions—political, educational, economic and physical integrity—to highlight areas where women and girls face systematic disadvantages and discrimination.