Goal 5: Gender Equality – Overview, Targets & Metrics

Gender parity has been called the single most crucial development issue of the 21st century. It’s about more than just men and women are equal. Real gender equality is not just about the illusion of a level playing field it’s when men and women, boys and girls, have equal opportunities for success, access to resources and treatment in society.

It is a story about breaking that centuries old stereotypes, norms and cultures and attitudes that stifled women from reaching their maximum potential: it is a narrative about changing mind sets, and amplifying the voice of those whose voices were being shut down. In some way or another, women have made strides around the world in getting into schools and workplaces and even parliaments.

Research also tells us that when women and men are equal partners in every sphere of their lives including as citizens, mothers and fathers, students, leaders and employees as they are safer, healthier, more prosperous and more peaceful.

Goal 5: Gender Equality

The significance of feminism is immeasurable. When women can participate in all walks of life as men do, they give full play to their potential for the benefit of families and communities and countries. Indeed, it has been demonstrated time and again that when you educate women, child mortality rates fall, family incomes rise and communities grow stronger.

Likewise, companies that include women do better in terms of the bottom line and encourage more creativity and innovation. This endeavour is equally closely linked with other international agendas such as the eradication of poverty, better health and quality education. In the absence of gender parity, sustainable progress elsewhere in development is almost impossible.

Key Targets for Gender Equality

To monitor and scale interventions, the international community, including the United Nations via the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has identified a set of specific targets in gender-context areas. The targets that can be used as a road map are as follows:

• Must eliminate all types of discrimination against women and girls.
• End violence against women such as domestic violence, sexual assault, and exploitation of them.
• Nothing beyond and above ending harmful practices of child marriage, female genital mutilation.
• Value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of shared responsibility in households and families.
• Guaranteeing equal access for women to education and work.
• Implement measures and legislation for the advancement of women and gender equality.

Metrics to Measure Progress

Tracking progress on gender equity is difficult, but tangible indicators can tell us where things are getting better and where we still need to #womensiphour efforts. Among the most common of leading indicators are:

• Gender pays gap: Usually refers to the difference in men’s and women’s earnings.
• Leadership representation: Tracking what proportion of women hold political office, sit on corporate boards and take executive roles.
• Education involvement: The primary, secondary and tertiary boy-to-girl enrolment ratios.
• Violence against women: The share of ever-partnered women and girls who have experienced physical, sexual or emotional violence.
• Maternal health effect: Let’s measure maternal death and health access for women.
• Unpaid care work, unpaid domestic labour: How much of it that women do versus men.

Governments and organizations can track progress over time and learn which policies are effectively making a difference from these metrics. For instance, further closing the wage gap or having a greater presence of women in leadership roles are strong indicators of progress.

Problems Faced by Women for Gender Equality

Although there is good news on many fronts, the fight for equality between the sexes is far from won. The worst includes cultural norms, systemic discrimination and lack of access. Women in some cultures are still confined from attending school or look for jobs due to traditional roles.

In industrialized countries too, women meet an invisible barrier that prevents them accessing top positions of power. There is also workplace bias, the inability to access affordable childcare and even safety concerns serving as further roadblocks. Additionally, the current landscape of global crisis (the COVID-19 pandemic) has served to show just how fragile any advancements in the area of gender equality can be.

The pandemic caused women to suffer an outsize share of job losses and much more unpaid care work, making it clear how essential sustainable systems are to equality in a time of emergency.

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