Gender inequality is holding back whole societies, having a positively toxic effect, both socially and economically. Take Amina. She lives in the Sahel and is among the only 8% of her country’s females who finished primary education, but she got married at 17. Statistically, she will have 7 children over her lifetime, most likely will not hold an ID to access formal banking or social services (as is the case for 68% of her female peers), has only a 25% chance of being literate and, if she holds a job, it will likely be informal or in agriculture – in her country, 82% of working women are in the informal economy and 70% of them work in agriculture. Legally, Amina cannot be head of household in the same way as a man, she cannot legally open a bank account in the same way as a man, and there are no laws protecting her from gender discrimination when accessing credit. Furthermore, she cannot choose where to live in the same way as a man.
The data snapshot of Amina’s country, below, generated by EFI Data360 illustrates some of its data gaps.
These figures, of course, do not represent just one woman. Rather, they reflect the average of an entire nation. While in most countries the situation is not quite so dire for women, full gender parity still does not exist in any nation. Scaled up to a global level, that amounts to a lot of gender inequality – gender gaps are a global phenomenon. And in the most extreme cases, grave gender discrimination is associated with a host of societal ills including war, displacement, environmental degradation and the spread of disease, impacting us all.
Each country’s particular circumstances and level of inequality are different. Data help us realize both these things – inequality is pervasive across all societies but the degree and extent of it differs from country to country. This means that each country's solution needs to be tailored to its context. The right combination of data and a structured way of interpreting it can help us figure out the design of the right policy or program solutions.
A healthy, inclusive economy is based on various factors, and promoting economic participation and growth may require looking at a multitude of data, covering several sectors. Synthesizing data in such a way is not a common skill. Particularly when you are considering the constraints and challenges women face, it means bringing into your work measures not normally used in economic analysis, such as the availability of contraceptives or the prevalence of child marriage. Further, you have to learn to read across categories of information to discern the constraints being applied to women that do not affect men. Then, and only then, can you formulate policy solutions with real integrity.
This was the idea behind the recent development by a World Bank team of two tools: automated gender data generation sheets and an accompanying data analysis guide. These tools were developed as part of a toolkit to support female entrepreneurship but – don’t be distracted if the topic seems too narrow or out of your sandbox. The tools developed can be used to design programs to remedy many aspects of women's economic and social exclusion.
Data Sheets: An online data-generation resource that creates, at the click of a button, comprehensive country snapshots of a country’s gender situation as it relates to 7 topics (social norms, business climate, technology, legal and regulatory framework, access to finance, access to markets, training/skills). This tool generates information across some 125 indicators.
Analysis Guide: An accompaniment to the data sheets to help interpret the data and incorporate findings into projects and policies. This method teaches people to analyze multiple datasets and synthesize the information into a complete picture of a country's gender landscape—and then use it to build a realistic, effective action plan to tackle the constraints that hold women – and entire economies - back.
The World Bank’s forthcoming Gender Strategy Update, building on the implementation success of the 2016-23 Strategy, spells out a bolder ambition to accelerate gender equality for a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive future in alignment with the World Bank Group Evolution Roadmap. Using tested, standardized methods, and tools, underpinned by reliable data sources such as described here as the basis for project or policy interventions must become systematic for us to be able to make a true and lasting dent in persisting gender gaps across a range of topics and sectors.
