RP is No. 6 in world gender equality survey

[explorer]

RP is No. 6 in world gender equality survey

Inquirer
Last updated 03:36am (Mla time) 11/23/2006

Published on Page A1 of the November 23, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

LONDON -- No country in the world has achieved equality of the ***es in the key areas of economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment, according to a new ranking of 115 nations published on Tuesday.

Sweden has gone farthest in eliminating inequality between men and women, followed by other Scandinavian countries Norway, Finland and Iceland. Germany is in fifth place.

The Philippines ranks sixth in the Gender Gap Index, which covers 90 percent of the world’s population and was compiled by researchers from Harvard University, the London Business School and the World Economic Forum (WEF).

It is the only Asian country in the top 10. It scored well across the board and is one of only five countries to have closed the gender gap for both health and survival and educational attainment. (The four others are Dominican Republic, France, Honduras and Lesotho.)

The United States comes in at 22nd place; Yemen ranks bottom.

“For the first time the gut instincts that many of us have are backed by statistics,” said Cherie Booth, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and a prominent human rights lawyer.

“There still is no level playing field for men and women,” Booth said at the launch of the index in London.

Patchy progress

A century on from the heyday of the women’s suffrage movement and nearly 40 years since the publication of Germaine Greer’s feminist bible, “The Female Eunuch,” the Gender Gap Index points to only patchy progress.

“We find that no country in the world has yet managed to eliminate the gender gap,” it states.

The nations studied had, on average, closed about 90 percent of the gender gap in education and health, but only 50 percent in economic participation and opportunity and 15 percent in political empowerment, according to Saadia Zahidi, of the WEF.

Sweden is the only country in the world to close the overall gender gap by more than 80 percent, she added.

Although there are 10 European Union countries in the top 20, five trail toward the bottom of the scale -- Greece (69th), France (70th), Malta (71st), Italy (77th) and Cyprus (83rd).

Their positions reflect low levels of political participation by women in decision-making bodies and poor scores in economic participation and opportunity, the report says.

Women in politics

According to the report, Germany’s success is linked to its high levels of female political empowerment, highlighted by the election of Angela Merkel as chancellor last year.

The top five have changed little since the first gender gap study last year, when it consisted of Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Finland.

This year’s report praises the political position of women in Scandinavia. Sweden is the only country in the world with an equal number of male and female politicians, while in Finland, Iceland and Norway, women hold at least a third of all ministerial and parliamentary positions.

Scandinavia also leads the field economically -- the majority of all professional and technical workers are women.

This position is helped by generous arrangements for women who want to raise a family as well as pursue a career, the report adds.

Sweden and Norway “offer the longest maternity leaves and among the best maternity leave benefits in the world, while retaining high levels of women’s labor force participation,” the report says.

Denmark is rated eighth this year; Britain, ninth; Australia, 15th; and New Zealand, seventh.

Empowered in labor

The relatively poor position (22nd) of the United States was linked by Harvard University’s Ricardo Hausmann, one of the authors of the report, to the “weak” performance of women in politics.

“Women have been empowered to participate in the labor force, but not in politics,” Hausmann said.

Scandinavia benefited from a higher proportion of women in political office than many, and this is the measure that hits the US ranking despite its good scores elsewhere.

Factors including when the school day ends and whether children are expected to go home for lunch before returning to school may also have “quite a significant impact” on women’s employment, said another author of the report, Laura Tyson of the London Business School.

EU newcomers Latvia and Lithuania, which only joined in 2004, are in the 19th and 20th positions, streaking ahead of the five laggard nations and Austria (26th) and Belgium (33rd).

The two countries ranked as having the biggest gender gaps are Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where the gap stands at 52 percent and 47 percent, respectively.

Access to resources

By quantifying differences between the ***es in access to resources or opportunities, rather than measuring absolute levels, the researchers sought to strip out the impact of economic development.

For economic participation, for example, the researchers measured the proportion of men and women in work, pay gaps, and the ratio of women to men among legislators, senior officials and managers.

The study shows that the gender gap for health and survival is very narrow across the world. Based on a score of 1 meaning full equality and 0 a complete lack of equality, the range for all 115 countries is just 0.9796 to 0.9227.

But when it comes to political empowerment -- the ratio of women to men in parliament, ministerial positions, and heads of state over the past 50 years -- the best performer is Sweden with a score of 0.5501. Saudi Arabia is last with zero.

France, however, is only in 70th place. It falls down on both the economic participation and political empowerment rankings.

South Africa is the best performer in Africa, coming in at 18th place.

[CVT]

I tend to believe that this is a clear competitive advantage for the Philippines. Now, if we can only harness this strength (and advantage) for real progress, then this country can really assert itself in the world arena....

:starwars:

[tsupermario]

it helps na maraming ander dito sa pilipinas :twak:

[Kikkomann]

^^^ Sasabihin ko pa lang sana.

[Jun aka Pekto]

it helps na maraming ander dito sa pilipinas :twak:

It applies to Pinoys here as well. We're not really "under". We just don't want to spend 5 hours arguing with the wife...... or sleeping on the couch.

[NazQ]

equality? e parang mas dominating ang women dito sa pinas, hehe
i vote for equality for men!

[greenlyt]

equality? e parang mas dominating ang women dito sa pinas, hehe
i vote for equality for men!

amen to that brother! lets fight for our rights!

[oldblue]

ibang klase talaga pinay wife, dominating!

[mantoy]

dito sa office namen one foreign visitor commented, "what's wrong with our manila office? why so many women?"

[nugundam93]

that's great news!