The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is #PressforProgress.
We can’t be complacent. Now, more than ever, there’s a strong call-to-action to press forward and progress gender parity.
A strong call to #PressforProgress. A strong call to motivate and unite friends, colleagues and whole communities to think, act and be gender inclusive.
Women in the workforce is a winning formula
International Women’s Day, on March 8, is the perfect opportunity to highlight the progress made in the struggle for women’s rights, particularly with regard to their integration into the labour market and their participation in the economic development of their countries.
In addition to being mothers, women are entrepreneurs, company executives, managers, politicians, soldiers, doctors, lawyers and the list goes on. Women are taking an increasingly active role in the labour market and are now finding their way into many areas which they didn’t have access to just a few years ago. According to the international organization UN Women, 552 million women worldwide entered the labour market between 1980 and 2008. However, much remains to be done to achieve equality, with women accounting for only 31 per cent of permanent, full-time workers. And only 18.3 per cent of companies are run by women.
The more women who enter the labour market, the more prosperous the economy will be. UN Women reports that the GDP of the United States and Japan would increase by nine percent and 16 per cent respectively if as many women as men were gainfully employed. On International Women’s Day in 2014, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that in countries where men and women are considered as equals, they enjoy better economic growth and that companies with women among their business executives have better overall success. Clearly, the increased presence of women in the workplace is good for everyone.