Read: Businesses at forefront of driving gender equality
The pandemic has brought the world untold suffering and hardship. It has also brought us the chance of change. The chance to make the world a fairer place, where opportunity is available to everyone. We don’t have to go back to how things were before.
Equality of opportunity is about people as well as places, providing equal access to opportunity for everyone, everywhere. The Purpose Coalition has developed a set of Purpose Goals to be the architecture of a truly level playing field, covering different life stages, as well as important elements like infrastructure and digital connectivity. Goal 14 is achieving equality through diversity and inclusion. That’s where gender equality comes in. It’s intrinsic to any comprehensive social mobility strategy but it’s also good for business - more diverse organisations make better decisions, adopting wider and more creative perspectives that reflect the communities they serve.
When I was International Development Secretary, it was clear to me that it was impossible to make a significant difference to the lives of the world’s poorest people if women - half the population - were locked out of those plans. There was also a stark reminder in research published last week in the Lancet that globally COVID has had a greater negative social and economic impact on women and girls than men, exacerbating disparities that already existed. As we look to a world beyond COVID, we need to build a ‘50-50 recovery’, one that implicitly recognises that gender equality is a foundation stone for a successful future Britain.
On International Women’s Day, we can learn from what we’ve achieved so far. In 2017 as Minister for Women and Equalities, I took the Gender Pay Gap regulations through Parliament that now provide a transparent, consistent approach for employers to report their progress in the workplace.
Whilst there’s still a long way to go, we should recognise that much of the headway we’ve made on gender equality in the UK has been facilitated by employers who have genuinely challenged themselves to remove the barriers that exist for women at work.
Yet it’s not just about getting in but also getting on. Recent figures show that 40% of UK FTSE 100 board positions are now held by women, second only to France in international rankings. There were also increases in the number of board positions held by women in the FTSE 250 and 350. This year there were 700 more women in leadership roles in FTSE 350 companies. I’m proud to say that of the four companies which have both a woman CEO and Chair, three – Severn Trent, Pennon Group and Direct Line Insurance Group – have been working with the Purpose Coalition to help drive the levelling up agenda.
Many of the companies we have partnered with are already helping to deliver a gender equal world, building workplaces where women can thrive. They work upstream in schools, using role models and real-life experience to widen aspiration, demonstrating to girls that careers in tech or STEM subjects, for example, can be for them. They develop and train them, helping to fill a skills gap that is inevitable if only 50% of the population can be considered for job vacancies in any particular role. These leading employers recognise this must be supported by a range of policies that will attract women, enable them to flourish and retain their talents.
In particular, they have embraced the new ways of working that were anyhow further driven by the pandemic, reviewing their practices to ensure that hybrid working especially benefits their female employees, making it easier to combine work with caring responsibilities or have a better work-life balance. It’s a vital step because one clear message from gender pay gap data is that whilst the pay gap has narrowed dramatically for younger women at work, starting a family still means women’s careers often slow down or stall at that point compared to men’s. Harnessed effectively, routine hybrid working post pandemic could be a real stepchange in removing barriers and enhancing the ability of women to drive on with their careers.
Only one in three leadership roles and about 25% of all executive committee roles are currently held by women. There are only eight women CEOs in the FTSE 100, and none from an ethnic minority group. That’s untenable in 21st century Britain. But in the same way that it has been business and employers taking steps to narrow the gender gap at entry level and earlier in careers, it’s now vital they recognise that hybrid working can be a crucial step to reducing it later in careers and at senior levels of their organisations. It sits alongside other important work on mentoring and allyship for women to progress in careers.
We need a renewed push for gender equality in Britain. We all have a part to play and, alongside employers, there are lots of fantastic organisations that are part of a wider effort. Levelling up is about everyone, everywhere. It’s about changing the terms of trade for those sections of our society that don’t always operate on a level playing field when it comes to opportunity. Let’s make sure we put gender equality at its heart.
By Rt Hon Justine Greening