How technology is widening the gender inequality gap

NOT only are women more financially responsible than their male counterparts, but they are also increasingly losing out at work at a time when technology is developing at a rate of knots.

- NICOLA MAWSON

As the World Bank has noted earlier this year, with the current rates of improvement, full gender parity will only be reached in 144 years, or around 2158. In terms of economic participation, the Bank’s Women, Business, and Law index, combines indicators of the legal environment for women within employment and entrepreneurship on a scale from 0 to 100, with 100 being “best”.

South Africa’s assessment against this index was 88.1 – above the average of 76.9 in the 2023 report. This does perhaps not tell the full story. The index focuses on enacting legal frameworks, such as whether the law mandates equal work for equal pay, and not the actual application.

South Africa’s November 2024 report on the progress made on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for action quoted Candice Chikumbe, Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, saying that the report showed that South Africa had made progress in areas such as education, health, social protection and political representation of women.

However, Chikumbe wrote, there are still challenges when it comes to aspects such as improving the inclusion of women in the economy, increasing women’s participation and absorption into the labour force and increasing representation of women in some sectors, especially within the private sector.

Olu Consulting Corporate Insights Consulting, Analytics, and Insights Manager, Nadia Wadia, estimates that the financial services research has found a consistent gender pay gap of between 20% and 40%.