Gender equality is coming, but slowly: it will take 37 years to reach parity in the workplace

Equality between men and women in the economic field is a little closer this year than last year, but still very, very far from being achieved. The gender parity index developed by the Closing Gap association, which is in its fifth edition, indicates that this difference has been reduced very slightly, by just 0.8 percentage points, thanks to improvements in the field of work and conciliation, but, taking into account this evolution, it would still take 37 years to completely close the gender gap in Spain.

The report analyses five categories: Employment, Education, Conciliation, Health and Wellbeing and Digitalisation, in which it studies 28 variables. In all these categories there are significant gender gaps, the most serious being in Conciliation and Employment, where the differences are greatest. If total parity, according to this index, would be to reach 100 in the measurement of its variables, in Conciliation, Spain only reaches 44.4 points and in Employment, 68.1. In the five categories as a whole, Spain would remain at 65.7 points, which implies that there is a gap of 34.3 points left to close.

The pandemic has caused a collapse in parity data in terms of conciliation

And this is already an improvement, because in 2023, the points achieved in Employment were 67.3 and in Conciliation, 43.1. This last category, the most worrying because it does not even reach 50 points, has finally registered a score equal to that before the pandemic. Covid-19 and the lockdowns meant that women took on the bulk of the care, which led to a collapse in the conciliation index to 40 points. “Women were negatively affected by the pandemic in terms of conciliation as the rates of part-time work increased,” explained Lucila García, general director of the ClosinGap Association.

“All gender gaps included in the index directly or indirectly affect GDP through the labour market,” explained Anna Merino, Director of Strategy and Economics at PwC and coordinator of the report, at its presentation today in Madrid. In this regard, and according to the association’s calculations, the lower employment and activity rate of women in the labour market, the lower number of hours worked due to greater part-time work and the presence of more women in sectors with lower productivity have a direct impact on GDP of up to 255.755 billion euros. In other words, the opportunity cost of closing the gender gap for the Spanish economy is 255.755 billion euros, which would mean an increase in GDP of 17.1%. In terms of employment, this opportunity cost would amount to 2.9 million full-time equivalent female jobs.

The only indicator that has fallen is Health and Wellbeing, which, although it is closer to parity than any other, with 83.7 points, is getting worse year after year. The fall is mainly due to two variables: years of good health compared to life expectancy, where women live longer but with a worse quality of life, and the risk of poverty and exclusion.

Closing Gap is a Spanish non-profit association that aims to promote economic growth through gender equality. Formed by 14 large companies: Merck, Mapfre, Repsol, BMW, Mahou San Miguel, PwC, CaixaBank, Grupo Social ONCE, Kreab, Fundación CEOE, Telefónica, Redeia, Herbert Smith Freehills Spain and Enagás, it aims to accelerate the transformation in favor of equal opportunities between women and men.