Gender gap carries a big cost
If you are not convinced, would the annual loss of almost $80 billion of Asian output change your mind? By William Pesek Bloomberg News Published: April 30, 2007 We live in a world of daunting economic challenges: debt imbalances, out-of-whack currencies, Chinese overheating, wobbly housing markets, erratic energy prices, terrorism, geopolitical risks, you name it. Lets add another one to the list: women. Gender discrimination is often seen as a social issue. Increasingly, though, it is becoming an economic one, even worthy for the Group of 7 nations to discuss it. If you are not convinced, would the annual loss of almost $80 billion of Asian output change your mind? That estimate comes from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP), and it could be conservative. The group says the Asia-Pacific region is losing as much as $47 billion of output per year from a lack of female participation in labor markets. And as much as $30 billion is lost because of gender gaps in education systems. This is the wrong time for Asia to be squandering twice the annual output of Luxembourg because of a problem that is so easily solved. Growth in India would increase by 1.08 percentage points if its female-labor participation rate were put on par with the United States, the UN group said in a report April 18. Doing so would give India extra gross domestic product equivalent to Uruguays as it struggles to raise millions out of poverty. Gender discrimination has always been considered a soft issue, a human rights issue, said Shamika Sirimanne, a senior UN development economist in Bangkok. But we are seeing it carries a huge economic cost. Admittedly, gender inequality does not factor easily into a nations credit ratings, bond yields or stock valuations. It is not something to which investment-bank economists pay much attention. But over time, empowering women would make Asia a far more vibrant place. Aside from India, the UN report also pointed to Malaysia and Indonesia as economies that would benefit from greater labor participation among women. It noted that female involvement in China is already considerably higher than much of Asia. Perhaps it is no coincidence that China remains the regions star economic performer. Yes, things are improving for women globally, and Asia is no exception. Yet there is ample evidence that things are improving much more slowly in the 2000s than many feminists had hoped for. Politicians need to realize that under-utilizing women in the workforce leads to slower growth and less-skilled labor markets. The same is true of conservative business cultures that limit womens ability to move up into the executive suite. Take MasterCard Worldwides latest womens advancement index for Asia. It showed that even as women make strides in labor force participation and education, they are less confident than a year ago of getting more of the managerial positions that now go to men. The index fell to 72.09 in 2007 from 76.11 in 2006. The cost of undereducating women is growing as ideas and information become more valuable than manufacturing. It is an idea Lawrence Summers helped put on the U.S. governments radar screen a decade ago while working for President Bill Clinton. But Summers was pressured to resign the presidency of Harvard University last year amid accusations that he had made sexist statements. The dustup occurred at a conference in Cambridge in 2005 when the former U.S. Treasury secretary questioned womens aptitude for science. The outcry was misplaced because women have few more enthusiastic cheerleaders among economists than Summers. In the late 1990s and in 2000, I traveled with him through sub-Saharan Africa, India and other poverty-plagued economies like Indonesia and the Philippines. In each place, Summers counseled leaders to invest more in educating girls. The reason: Returns on educating women typically exceed those on men. The odds are that the more educated a nations women are, the more emphasis they will put on investing in the education and health of their children. That results in an economic ripple effect from one generation to the next. Gender issues are not just holding back developing economies, a point persuasively made in an April 3 Goldman Sachs Group report. The London-based economist Kevin Daly argued that reduced inequality will help rich nations address the twin problems of population aging and shoring up public pension programs. Closing the gap between male and female employment would have huge implications for the global economy, boosting U.S. GDP by as much as 9 percent, euro-zone GDP by 13 percent and Japanese GDP by 16 percent, Daly said. Whats more, he said, rising female labor participation would have important implications for global equity markets. The good news is that gender balance can be achieved with a minimum amount of effort and cost. All thats needed is political will. The bad news is that it is not clear governments realize that. Given how fast Asia is growing and how important it is in becoming an engine of growth in the global economy, we need to make more progress on the gender issue, Sirimanne said. Its a big and growing one. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] *************************************************************************** Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia *************************************************************************** __________________________________________________________________________ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Reading only, http://ppi-india.blogspot.com 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
