Global Growth Depends on Promoting Women

Karl Marx said that everyone looks the same when viewed through the lens of capital: race, class, age, disability, etc. are equalized under umbrella terms like “rate of marginal productivity.” As nations search for ways to maintain economic growth, they will prove Marx right, at least when it comes to employing women.

As Saadia Zahidi, director of constituents at the World Economic Forum, explains, gaps in public services available to women are closing, but women still lack a participatory voice in economic and political matters:

“Ninety six percent of health gaps have been closed; 93% of education gaps have been closed. Only about 59% of economic participation gap and only 18% of the political empowerment gap [have been closed]. So what we find is that … women are starting to be as healthy and almost as educated as men. And yet they are not being channeled into the economy and not able to participate in decision-making. So that’s an immense loss in the global economy.”