It is time to make the business case for gender equality 
As individuals, families and organizations around the world come together to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, many will focus on the “human” element: Celebrating women’s achievements, fundraising for female-focused charities, and raising awareness about women’s equality.
Doing so is vital, but it is not the entire story. Far fewer will focus on the business case for gender equality — the very fact that pushing for gender equality makes extremely strong business sense. Around the world, this fact may ultimately be the one that helps business take action to address gender equality.
Resilient and commercially viable organizations, as we all know, play a vital role in economic growth around the world and boost national economies. Within these organizations, women, of course, represent half of the total of employment potential, meaning that developing the talents of women, in turn, increases an organization’s competitive advantage.
The statistics speak for themselves. A recent McKinsey study of 1,000 companies across 12 countries found that firms that had taken steps to improve gender equality were more profitable than national averages. A separate study of Fortune 500 companies conducted by Catalyst found that organizations with high levels of gender equality in management positions had 35 percent better return on equity than firms that had failed to take similar steps.
Additionally, an EY study of the top 200 utilities in the world found that companies with high levels of gender equality on their boards had higher returns on investments. In fact, the top 20 most diverse utilities significantly outperformed the bottom 20 — a difference that could be in the millions of dollars or more.
On a broader, macro level, gender parity in labor markets would mean an additional $12 trillion to $28 trillion added to global global domestic product. To put that in perspective, that is about the value of the US and Chinese economies of today combined.
As it continues to work on economic and social reform, Saudi Arabia has started prioritizing gender equality, with a recent World Bank report highlighting the Kingdom’s rapid progress in that area since 2017 by ranking it the top reformer and the top improver among 190 countries.
The report gave the Kingdom an overall score of 70.6 out of 100 — a 38.8 jump since its last ranking — placing it first among GCC countries and second in the Arab world. The Kingdom has also stressed the importance of gender equality in its Vision 2030, with one of the goals being to increase the proportion of women in employment from the current level of 22 percent to 30 percent.
One of the most encouraging aspects of the reform in the Kingdom is the push for more women to pursue degrees in STEM disciplines. For example, of the 5,200 who graduated from the Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University (PNU) in Riyadh in 2019, 1,400 came from STEM faculties.
Educating young women and providing them with access to multiple options when it comes to future career paths is key to gender parity both in the public and private sector, and the Kingdom has clearly taken this to heart with sweeping reforms.
In Saudi Arabia and across the region — and indeed, the world — work remains to be done. The rapid pace of technological change means that women must continue to be heavily represented in higher education, to allow them to play an equal role in the future economy.
In the private sector, there remains a concerning lack of true understanding regarding what equality means — there are various factors that must be considered in terms of equal pay, such as bonuses and shares. Examining a wide variety of factors will ensure true gender parity.
We have already noted the huge benefit that having women in leadership and executive-level positions would have on a business. Here again, businesses in Saudi Arabia must redouble efforts. Part of this will mean nurturing young female talents from an early age, encouraging them to take additional responsibilities and empowering them with the skills they need to succeed.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the need to focus on these issues. The WEF’s 2020 Gender Gap report found that while women made up 39 percent of the global workforce, they represented 54 percent of all job losses. In this environment, it is high time to double, or even treble, efforts to ensure that these issues are addressed.
This year, the theme for International Women’s Day is #ChooseToChallenge. Across all sectors, that is what businesses in this country and the wider MENA region need to do: Challenge and call out gender bias and choose to make a change.
• Caroline Berns is head of talent acquisition at the Ericsson MMEA.
