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Worldwide Optimism About Future of Gender Equality, Even as Many See Advantages for Men

Sizable shares say men have more opportunities for high-paying jobs, should have preferential treatment when jobs are scarce, table of contents.

• Widespread support for equal rights for men and women
• People in most countries are optimistic about the future of gender equality
• Majorities in many African, Middle Eastern and Asian-Pacific publics say men should have preferential treatment when jobs are scarce
• Across the globe, many believe men in their country have a better life than women
• Men generally seen as having more opportunities than women for high-paying jobs
• Many say men have more opportunities than women to be leaders in their community
• Publics see more gender parity when it comes to people’s opportunities to express their political views and to get a good education
• Many say men have more influence than women when it comes to making important decisions about household finances
• Larger shares say women have more influence when it comes to how to raise children than say men do
• People generally think men and women have about the same influence when it comes to decisions about their family’s religious practices
• In nearly all countries surveyed, majorities prefer an egalitarian marriage
• Acknowledgments
• Methodology

This report explores cross-national perceptions of gender equality, including the opportunities available to men and women and the power they wield in family decisions. It also examines expectations for the future of gender equality across countries.

For this report, we used data from a survey conducted across 34 countries from May 13 to Oct. 2, 2019, totaling 38,426 respondents. The surveys were conducted face-to-face across Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, and on the phone in United States and Canada. In the Asia-Pacific region, face-to-face surveys were conducted in India, Indonesia and the Philippines, while phone surveys were administered in Australia, Japan and South Korea. Across Europe, the survey was conducted over the phone in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK, but face-to-face in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.

Here are the  questions  used for the report, along with responses, and the survey  methodology .

Twenty-five years after the United Nations’ Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action pledged to take the necessary steps to “remove all obstacles to gender equality and the advancement and empowerment of women,” support for gender equality is strong around the globe. Across 34 countries surveyed by Pew Research Center, a median of 94% think it is important for women in their country to have the same rights as men, with 74% saying this is very important.

In many countries, women place more importance on gender equality than men do. However, women are less optimistic than men that women in their countries will achieve equality in the future, and they are more likely to say men have better lives than women.

While publics around the world embrace the idea of gender equality, at least four-in-ten think men generally have more opportunities than women in their country when it comes to getting high-paying jobs (a median of 54% across the 34 countries surveyed) and being leaders in their community (44%). Publics see more equity in access to a good education – a median of 81% believe men and women in their country generally have the same opportunities in this area – and expressing their political views (63% say men and women have the same opportunities). No more than 6% say women have more opportunities than men in any of these realms.

Majorities in most European countries surveyed, as well as in Japan, South Korea, Israel, Australia, Canada and the United States, say men in their country have more opportunities than women when it comes to getting high-paying jobs. When it comes to being leaders in their communities, more than half in Nigeria, South Korea, Japan, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Italy, Tunisia, Greece, France and Slovakia think men in their country have more opportunities than women.

Despite widespread support for gender equality around the world, a notable share (a median of 40% across the countries surveyed) thinks men should have more right to a job than women when jobs are scarce; 56% disagree with this notion. In some countries, men are more likely than women to say men should have preferential treatment when jobs are scarce, with double-digit gender differences in Kenya, Nigeria, Bulgaria, South Africa, Israel, Slovakia, Italy, Argentina and the Czech Republic.

When asked who has a better life in their country, a 46% median across the 34 countries surveyed say men do, while 15% point to women and 31% volunteer that neither men nor women have a better life. Majorities in France, Spain, Sweden, the UK, Canada, the U.S., Turkey, Australia and the Netherlands think men have a better life than women in their country. Tunisia is the only country surveyed where more say women have a better life than say men do, although similar shares say women have a better life as say both men and women enjoy the same quality of life.

In most of the 34 countries surveyed, women are more likely than men to say men have a better life in their country. Gender differences are particularly large on this question in Greece (women are 27 percentage points more likely to say this), Slovakia (25 points), Italy (25), Canada (20), Brazil (20), Hungary (19) and Turkey (18).

The shares saying that men have a better life than women in their country have increased considerably since 2010 in many of the countries where trends are available – possibly as a result of increased awareness of gender issues spurred by the #MeToo Movement – with differences of at least 20 percentage points in Turkey, the UK, South Korea and Japan. Poland is the only country surveyed in both years where a smaller share now says men have a better life than did so in 2010.

Despite seeing some advantages for men, most people express optimism about the future of gender equality in their country. A median of 75% across the 34 countries surveyed think it is likely that women in their country will eventually have the same rights as men, and 5% volunteer that women in their country have already achieved equality.

Men tend to be more optimistic than women about prospects for gender equality, with gender differences of at least 10 percentage points in 10 countries and smaller but significant differences in 11 others. For example, 77% of men in Japan – compared with 58% of women – say it’s likely that women in their country will eventually attain or already have the same rights as men. Nigeria and the Philippines are the only countries surveyed where a larger share of women than men are optimistic about gender equality.

When it comes to family life, the sense is that men and women have about the same influence in making important decisions in their households. A 34-country median of 55% say both have roughly equal influence when it comes to important decisions about household finances, 56% say this about how to raise children and 62% say this of decisions about a family’s religious practices. To the extent that people see a difference, however, men are generally seen as having more of an influence than women when it comes to decisions about household finances, while women are generally seen as having more influence when it comes to decisions about raising children.

In nearly every country surveyed, majorities say that a marriage where both the husband and wife have jobs and take care of the home is more satisfying than one where the husband provides for the family and the wife takes care of the house and children. Even so, sizable shares in many countries say a more traditional marriage would be preferable, including about four-in-ten in India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Turkey and Tunisia.

These are among the major findings from a Pew Research Center survey conducted among 38,426 people in 34 countries from May 13 to Oct. 2, 2019.

Most people agree it is important for women to have the same rights as men in their country. Across the 34 countries surveyed, a median of 94% hold this view, including nearly all in Sweden, the Netherlands, France, the U.S., Canada, Germany, Greece, Spain, Australia, Argentina, the UK and Hungary.

In addition, majorities in 30 nations say it is very important that men and women have the same rights in their country. The share who endorse this stronger sentiment varies across countries, however.

In Sweden, the most egalitarian country included in the survey based on indices from the World Economic Forum and the United Nations Development Program , 96% believe gender equality is very important. By comparison, substantially smaller shares hold this view in Tunisia (44%) and Nigeria (43%), two countries with relatively higher levels of gender inequality. Strong support for gender equality is also relatively less common in Kenya, Russia, South Korea and Ukraine.

Within each country, views of equality often differ by gender. In 20 nations, women are more likely than men to say gender equality is very important. This gender difference is largest in Kenya and Nigeria, where relatively small shares overall view equal rights as very important. More than half of women in Nigeria (54%) think gender equality is very important, compared with only 31% of men. And while 64% of Kenyan women say gender equality is very important, just 40% of Kenyan men express the same view. In many countries where overwhelming majorities endorse equality, men and women do not differ in their views.

The U.S. is the only country where men are more likely than women to say it is very important for men and women to have the same rights. But while the difference is statistically significant, it is fairly small: 93% of men hold this view, compared with 89% of women.

Educational attainment is also related to views of gender equality. In 26 countries, those with more education are more likely than those with less to believe it is very important for women to have the same rights as men. 1 The largest differences are in Lithuania and the Czech Republic. Three-quarters or more of those with more education in Lithuania (76%) and the Czech Republic (87%) hold this view, compared with 54% of Lithuanians and 66% of Czechs with less education. There are also educational differences of 10 percentage points or more in Italy, Bulgaria, South Korea, Mexico, the Philippines, Ukraine, Spain, Poland and Nigeria.

In addition to viewing gender equality as important, most people are optimistic that women will eventually have the same rights as men in their country. Majorities in 30 of the 34 countries surveyed hold this view, including roughly 90% in the Netherlands, India, the Philippines and Mexico.

In the U.S., 75% believe gender equality is likely. An additional 14% volunteer the response that women already have the same rights as men. One-in-ten or more in most Central and Eastern European nations, as well as Ukraine, Greece, Italy, Russia, Israel and Tunisia, agree that women and men already have equal rights.

Despite widespread optimism globally, substantive shares in some of the countries surveyed say it is unlikely that women will eventually have the same rights as men in their country. About a quarter or more in Nigeria, Japan, Kenya,Turkey, Israel, Tunisia, Spain and Hungary are pessimistic about the prospects for gender equality in their country.

Across many countries, women are less optimistic than men about the likelihood of attaining gender equality. For example, 77% of men in Japan think either men and women already have equal rights or that it is likely they will in the future, compared with 58% of Japanese women. Similar gender differences can be found in 20 other countries, including roughly 15 percentage point differences in Spain, South Korea, France, Italy and Brazil.

Nigeria and the Philippines are the only publics that show the opposite pattern: Larger shares of women than men say gender equality is likely. Half of men in Nigeria express this view, compared with 68% of women.

Across the 34 countries surveyed, a median of 56% disagree with the notion that men should have more right to a job than women when jobs are scarce; 40% agree that men should receive preferential treatment in this situation.

In nearly all North American, Western European and Latin American countries surveyed – as well as in Australia, Lithuania, Hungary, Israel, the Czech Republic and Japan – majorities reject the idea that men should have more right to a job than women in tough economic times, as do pluralities in Poland and Bulgaria. This is particularly the case in Sweden, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, the U.S., the UK, Australia, France and Germany, where roughly eight-in-ten or more disagree that men deserve preferential treatment when jobs are scarce.

In contrast, majorities in the African countries surveyed, as well as in India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Turkey and Lebanon, agree that men should have more right to a job than women when jobs are scarce. Roughly eight-in-ten say this in Tunisia and India.

Views on this remain virtually unchanged in most of the countries where the question has been previously asked (most recently in 2012 in Lebanon, Turkey and Tunisia and in 2010 in 15 other countries). Publics are now more likely to agree that men should have preferential treatment when jobs are scarce in Kenya (12 percentage points higher), Lebanon (+11 points) and Mexico (+11 points). Meanwhile, the shares saying men should have more right to a job in tough economic times have dropped in South Korea (8 percentage points less likely), Nigeria (-7 points) and Argentina (-6 points).

Across 30 of the 34 countries surveyed, those with less education are more likely to believe men should have more right to a job than women when jobs are scarce. For example, majorities of six-in-ten or more among those with less education in Turkey, Lebanon, Kenya, Slovakia, South Africa and South Korea agree, compared with roughly half or fewer of those with more education in these countries.

Income is also related to views on this. In most countries surveyed, those with lower incomes – equivalent to the median for their country or less – are more likely than those with higher incomes to say men should have more right to a job during tough economic times. In the U.S., Australia and much of Western Europe, those with lower incomes are at least twice as likely as those with higher incomes to believe men should receive preferential treatment when jobs are scarce. Still, only about a quarter or fewer across income groups in each of these countries say this.

In some countries, men are more likely than women to agree that men deserve preferential treatment when jobs are scarce, with double-digit differences in Kenya, Nigeria, Bulgaria, South Africa, Israel, Slovakia, Italy, Argentina and the Czech Republic.

There are also double-digit differences between the oldest and youngest age groups in South Korea, Brazil, Italy, Greece, Argentina, Poland, Lebanon, the Philippines, Israel, Australia, France and Spain: In each of these countries, adults ages 50 and older are more likely than those ages 18 to 29 to agree that men should have more right to a job during tough economic times.

Though many people expect that their country will become more egalitarian in time, a median of 46% across the 34 countries surveyed say that, all things considered, men have a better life than women in their country.

Majorities in France, Spain, Sweden, the UK, Canada, the U.S., Turkey, Australia and the Netherlands say men have a better life than women in their country. Pluralities in many other countries express the same view.

The volunteered response that neither gender has a better life than the other is common in many countries, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Roughly half or more provide this response in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary and Lithuania.

A third or more in Tunisia, Kenya, South Korea and South Africa believe, all things considered, women have a better life than men. Tunisia is the only country surveyed where a larger share say women are better off (37%) than say men are (24%).

This question was last asked in a subset of countries in 2010. In many of these countries, the share who believe men have a better life than women has increased substantially. The largest change is in Turkey. Roughly one-third of people in Turkey said men had a better life than women in 2010, compared with 57% in 2019.

Increases of roughly 20 percentage points or more can also be seen in the UK, South Korea, Japan, Spain, Indonesia and the U.S. Smaller increases can be seen in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Kenya. Poland is the only country where this share has decreased since 2010, from 55% to 35% in 2019.

As with other questions related to gender equality, men and women tend to hold different views. In 23 of the 34 countries surveyed, women are more likely than men to believe that men have a better life in their country. In Greece, almost half of women hold this view, compared with only 20% of men. Differences of 20 percentage points or more can also be seen in Slovakia, Italy, Canada and Brazil.

Nigeria stands out again for showing the opposite pattern. Men (51%) are more likely than women (42%) to say that men are better off in their country. Indonesia shows a similar pattern.

Majorities or pluralities in 22 of the 34 countries surveyed say men generally have more opportunities for high-paying jobs than women, including about two-thirds or more in Sweden, France, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Spain, the UK, Australia and Canada. More than four-in-ten in Greece, Nigeria, Russia, Lebanon and Argentina also think men in their country have more opportunities when it comes to getting high-paying jobs, but similar shares think opportunities are generally the same for men and women.

In the Philippines, Indonesia, India, South Africa, Kenya and Mexico, majorities say men and women have similar opportunities when it comes to getting high-paying jobs; half in Tunisia share this view.

Across most of the countries surveyed, women are significantly more likely than men to say men in their country have more opportunities when it comes to getting high-paying jobs. About two-thirds of women in the U.S. (66%) believe men in their country have more opportunities for high-paying jobs, compared with about half of men in the U.S. (53%). And while majorities of men and women in Canada say men have more opportunities in this area, women are far more likely to say this is the case (77% vs. 55%, respectively). This pattern is evident in nearly every European country surveyed (Greece and Lithuania are the exception), as well as in Australia, Ukraine, Brazil, South Korea, Russia, Argentina and Japan.

When it comes to opportunities to be leaders in their community, majorities in Nigeria, South Korea, Japan, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Italy, Tunisia, Greece and France say men in their country have more opportunities than women; about half in Slovakia say the same.

Even in many countries where majorities or pluralities believe men and women in their country generally have the same opportunities to be leaders in their community, sizable shares say men have more opportunities than women. For example, about four-in-ten or more in Spain, Canada, the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, India, Russia and Australia say this is the case in their country.

For the most part, men and women offer similar views on this. But to the extent that there is a difference, women tend to be more likely than men to see an advantage for men in getting opportunities to be leaders in their community. The exception is Kenya, where men (53%) are more likely than women (43%) to say men have more opportunities to be leaders in their community.

In 30 of the 34 countries surveyed, majorities or pluralities think men and women in their country have about the same opportunities when it comes to expressing their political views. About half in Japan also believe this, but an identical share says men have more opportunities than women.

More than six-in-ten Nigerians (64%) say men in their country have more opportunities than women when it comes to expressing their political views, as do 55% in South Korea and 53% in Turkey. Even in countries where majorities or pluralities believe men and women have about the same opportunities in this area, the shares saying men have more opportunities than women exceed the shares saying women have more opportunities by at least 10 percentage points.

Opinions on this generally do not vary significantly by gender, but in nine countries, women are far more likely than men to say men in their country have more opportunities to express their political views. For example, in South Korea, a majority of women (60%) think men in their country have more opportunities to express their political views, compared with 49% of South Korean men.

Gender gaps are also evident in the Netherlands (41% of women vs. 28% of men say men have more opportunities), Australia (36% vs. 23%), Spain (34% vs. 21%), Canada (34% vs. 23%), France (45% vs. 35%), the UK (36% vs. 27%), the U.S. (36% vs. 28%) and the Czech Republic (24% vs. 17%).

Kenya is the only country surveyed where men are more likely than women to say men in their country have more opportunities to express their political views. More than four-in-ten Kenyan men (45%) say this, compared with 35% of Kenyan women.

When it comes to getting a good education, majorities in all but one country surveyed – ranging from 64% in Brazil to 91% in Greece – say men and women in their country have about the same opportunities. About half say the same in Turkey.

One-third of the public in Turkey and about one-in-five in Nigeria, Israel, France, Slovakia, Brazil, Japan and South Korea think men in their country have more opportunities than women when it comes to getting a good education; smaller shares in these countries think women have more opportunities than men.

Tunisia is the only country surveyed where a significantly larger share says women have more opportunities than men to get a good education than say men have more opportunities than women. About a quarter of Tunisians (24%) see women as having more opportunities in this area, compared with 6% who say men do; 70% believe men and women have about the same opportunities to get a good education.

With the exception of Turkey, majorities of men and women across the countries surveyed believe both genders have about the same opportunities when it comes to getting a good education. And for the most part, differences in how men and women see this are modest at best.

Across the 34 countries surveyed, a median of 55% say that, in a family, men and women have about the same influence when it comes to making important decisions about household finances; 23% say men generally have more influence and 15% say women do.

To the extent that people see one gender having more influence when it comes to making important decisions about household finances, men are generally seen as having more influence than women. In 16 of the 34 countries surveyed, more say men have more influence than say women do by a margin of at least 10 percentage points. The gap is particularly wide in Nigeria, where 61% say men generally have more influence in this area (compared with 10% who say women do), Turkey (54% vs. 11%), Israel (44% vs. 11%), Lebanon (40% vs. 10%) and Sweden (37% vs. 9%). In each of these countries, people are at least four times as likely to say men have more influence as they are to say women do.

Among European publics, majorities or pluralities in 12 of 14 countries surveyed say men and women generally have about the same influence in making important decisions about household finances. The only two European countries surveyed where this is not the case are Lithuania and Slovakia, where similar or equal shares say both genders have about the same influence as say men have more influence in this area.

Majorities in the three Latin American countries surveyed – Mexico, Argentina and Brazil – say men and women have about the same influence in making important decisions about household finances. This is also the case in the Philippines, Canada, the U.S., Australia, Indonesia and South Africa.

Japan is the only country where the share saying women have more influence when it comes to making important decisions about household finances is significantly larger than the share saying men do (29% vs. 16%). Still, 54% in Japan say men and women generally have about the same influence.

In most of the countries surveyed, men and women have similar views on this question, but where differences emerge, men are typically more likely than women to say men in their country have more influence when it comes to important decisions about household finances, while women are more likely to say either women do or that both are about equal. For example, 61% of men in Turkey (vs. 48% of women) say men in their country have more influence than women. The UK is the only country surveyed where women are more likely than men to say men have more influence when it comes to making important decisions about household finances.

When it comes to who in a family has more influence when it comes to making important decisions about how to raise children, a median of 56% across the 34 countries surveyed say men and women have about the same influence; 39% say women have more influence and just 6% say men do.

Majorities in 18 of the 34 countries surveyed say that, in a family, men and women have about the same influence when it comes to making important decisions about how to raise children. Still, in nearly every country, far larger shares say women have more influence in this area than say men do. And in seven of the 34 countries – Lithuania, Greece, Lebanon, Slovakia, Israel, the Czech Republic and Turkey – majorities or pluralities say women in their country have more influence than men in making important decisions about raising children.

Men and women generally agree in their assessments of who has more influence when it comes to decisions about how to raise children, but there are exceptions. For example, in Brazil, women (43%) are more likely than men (34%) to say women in their country have more influence in making important decisions in this area; in turn, Brazilian men (61%) are more likely then Brazilian women (52%) to say both have about the same influence.

Across the 34 countries surveyed, a median of 62% say that, in a family, men and women generally have about the same influence when it comes to making important decisions about their family’s religious practices; 18% say women have more influence, while 14% say men do.

Across most of the countries surveyed, majorities or pluralities say men and women have about the same influence when it comes to making important decisions about their family’s religious practices. There are a few exceptions to this pattern. In Sweden, Israel and Nigeria, similar shares say men and women have about the same influence as say men have more influence than women in this area. And in Lithuania, 37% say men and women have the same influence and 41% say women have more influence.

In Israel, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, men are more likely than women to say that men in their country have more influence when it comes to making important decisions about their family’s religious practices. About half of men in Israel (51%) and Nigeria (49%) say this, compared with 38% of Israeli women and 36% of Nigerian women. And while about three-in-ten South African (28%) and Kenyan (31%) men say men in their country have more influence over important decisions about their family’s religious practices, two-in-ten women in each of those countries say the same.

In turn, women in Brazil, South Korea, Nigeria, Russia, France and Lebanon are more likely than their male counterparts to say women have more influence in making important decisions about their family’s religious practices. The gender difference is largest in Brazil, where 42% of women – vs. 29% of men – hold this view.

A median of 72% across the 34 countries surveyed say a marriage where both the husband and wife have jobs and take care of the house and children is a more satisfying way of life than one where the husband provides for the family and the wife takes care of the house and children. The shares saying that a more egalitarian marriage is better are lowest in Lithuania, Tunisia and Indonesia.

Publics in Sweden, France and Spain are the most likely to say an egalitarian marriage is preferable to one where the husband provides for the family and the wife takes care of the house and children. This view is also widespread in Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Kenya, Bulgaria, the UK, South Korea, Italy and Argentina, where at least three-quarters say the same.

In Tunisia and Indonesia, views on the more satisfying type of marriage are split. About half in each country prefer a marriage where the husband and wife both have jobs and take care of the house, while similar shares prefer a marriage with more traditional gender roles.

Even in some countries where majorities or pluralities prefer an egalitarian marriage, substantial shares say a marriage where the husband provides for the family and the wife takes care of the house and family would be more satisfying. For example, a third or more in India, Lebanon, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Nigeria and Lithuania say a more traditional marriage would be preferable.

Views on this vary somewhat by gender, but the differences tend to be relatively small, even in some countries where they are statistically different. In Poland, Turkey and Argentina, women are more likely than men to prefer an egalitarian marriage by a double-digit margin (10 percentage points in Poland, 11 points in Turkey and 12 points in Argentina).

Opinions vary more widely across educational attainment. Those with more education more likely to prefer a marriage where both the husband and wife have jobs and take care of the house and children in most of the countries surveyed. In fact, in 17 countries, those with more education are more likely to say this by 10 or more points, including difference of at least 20 points in Turkey (25 points more likely), Lebanon (21 points) and Brazil (20 points).

Age is also linked to views on what type of marriage is preferable in about half of the countries surveyed, with people younger than 30 more likely than those ages 50 and older to say a marriage where both the husband and wife have jobs and take care of the house and children is the more satisfying way of life. The difference is particularly pronounced in Lithuania, where 71% of those younger than 30 prefer an egalitarian marriage, compared with 43% of those ages 50 and older. There are also double-digit age differences in the U.S., Canada, Italy, the UK, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Australia, South Korea, Lebanon, Tunisia, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.

Preference for an egalitarian marriage has increased in three of the 16 countries where this question was also asked in 2010 (by 11 percentage points in South Korea, 8 points in Argentina and 6 points in Nigeria). In contrast, smaller shares now see an egalitarian marriage as preferable in Turkey, Indonesia, Russia and Germany. The steepest decline is in Turkey. About six-in-ten (57%) now say a marriage where both the husband and wife have jobs and take care of the house and children is the more satisfying way of life, compared with 72% a decade ago.

• For the purpose of comparing educational groups across countries, we standardize education levels based on the UN’s International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED). The lower education category is below secondary education and the higher category is secondary or above in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa, Tunisia and Ukraine. In all other countries, the lower education category is secondary education or below and the higher category is postsecondary or above. ↩

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• 06 September 2023

Gender equality: the route to a better world

You have full access to this article via your institution.

The Mosuo people of China include sub-communities in which inheritance passes down either the male or the female line. Credit: TPG/Getty

The fight for global gender equality is nowhere close to being won. Take education: in 87 countries, less than half of women and girls complete secondary schooling, according to 2023 data. Afghanistan’s Taliban continues to ban women and girls from secondary schools and universities . Or take reproductive health: abortion rights have been curtailed in 22 US states since the Supreme Court struck down federal protections, depriving women and girls of autonomy and restricting access to sexual and reproductive health care .

SDG 5, whose stated aim is to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”, is the fifth of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, all of which Nature is examining in a series of editorials. SDG 5 includes targets for ending discrimination and violence against women and girls in both public and private spheres, eradicating child marriage and female genital mutilation, ensuring sexual and reproductive rights, achieving equal representation of women in leadership positions and granting equal rights to economic resources. Globally, the goal is not on track to being achieved, and just a handful of countries have hit all the targets.

How the world should oppose the Taliban’s war on women and girls

In July, the UN introduced two new indices (see go.nature.com/3eus9ue ), the Women’s Empowerment Index (WEI) and the Global Gender Parity Index (GGPI). The WEI measures women’s ability and freedoms to make their own choices; the GGPI describes the gap between women and men in areas such as health, education, inclusion and decision making. The indices reveal, depressingly, that even achieving a small gender gap does not automatically translate to high levels of women’s empowerment: 114 countries feature in both indices, but countries that do well on both scores cover fewer than 1% of all girls and women.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made things worse, with women bearing the highest burden of extra unpaid childcare when schools needed to close, and subjected to intensified domestic violence. Although child marriages declined from 21% of all marriages in 2016 to 19% in 2022, the pandemic threatened even this incremental progress, pushing up to 10 million more girls into risk of child marriage over the next decade, in addition to the 100 million girls who were at risk before the pandemic.

Of the 14 indicators for SDG 5, only one or two are close to being met by the 2030 deadline. As of 1 January 2023, women occupied 35.4% of seats in local-government assemblies, an increase from 33.9% in 2020 (the target is gender parity by 2030). In 115 countries for which data were available, around three-quarters, on average, of the necessary laws guaranteeing full and equal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights had been enacted. But the UN estimates that worldwide, only 57% of women who are married or in a union make their own decisions regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Systemic discrimination against girls and women by men, in many contexts, remains a colossal barrier to achieving gender equality. But patriarchy is not some “natural order of things” , argues Ruth Mace, an anthropologist at University College London. Hundreds of women-centred societies exist around the world. As the science writer Angela Saini describes in her latest book, The Patriarchs , these are often not the polar opposite of male-dominated systems, but societies in which men and women share decision making .

After Roe v. Wade: dwindling US abortion access is harming health a year later

One example comes from the Mosuo people in China, who have both ‘matrilineal’ and ‘patrilineal’ communities, with rights such as inheritance passing down either the male or female line. Researchers compared outcomes for inflammation and hypertension in men and women in these communities, and found that women in matrilineal societies, in which they have greater autonomy and control over resources, experienced better health outcomes. The researchers found no significant negative effect of matriliny on health outcomes for men ( A.  Z. Reynolds et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117 , 30324–30327; 2020 ).

When it comes to the SDGs, evidence is emerging that a more gender-equal approach to politics and power benefits many goals. In a study published in May, Nobue Amanuma, deputy director of the Integrated Sustainability Centre at the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in Hayama, Japan, and two of her colleagues tested whether countries with more women legislators, and more younger legislators, are performing better in the SDGs ( N. Amanuma et al. Environ. Res. Lett. 18 , 054018; 2023 ). They found it was so, with the effect more marked for socio-economic goals such as ending poverty and hunger, than for environmental ones such as climate action or preserving life on land. The researchers recommend further qualitative and quantitative studies to better understand the reasons.

The reality that gender equality leads to better outcomes across other SDGs is not factored, however, into most of the goals themselves. Of the 230 unique indicators of the SDGs, 51 explicitly reference women, girls, gender or sex, including the 14 indicators in SDG 5. But there is not enough collaboration between organizations responsible for the different SDGs to ensure that sex and gender are taken into account. The indicator for the sanitation target (SDG 6) does not include data disaggregated by sex or gender ( Nature 620 , 7; 2023 ). Unless we have this knowledge, it will be hard to track improvements in this and other SDGs.

The road to a gender-equal world is long, and women’s power and freedom to make choices is still very constrained. But the evidence from science is getting stronger: distributing power between genders creates the kind of world we all need and want to be living in.

Nature 621 , 8 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02745-9

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Will the future be gender equal?

Mind the gap ... at current rates, women won't achieve equal pay until 2133 Image:  REUTERS/Daniel Munoz

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Stay up to date:, davos agenda.

Achieving gender equality isn't just a moral issue – it makes economic sense. Equality between men and women in all aspects of life, from access to health and education to political power and earning potential, is fundamental to whether and how societies thrive.

The most important factor in a country’s competitiveness is its human talent – the skills and productivity of its workforce. It is the same for a company or an organization. That’s why the proper participation of half the world’s population is so important for the well-being of both businesses and countries.

What’s the problem?

Although we are getting closer to gender parity, change isn't happening fast enough. For the past decade, we've been measuring the pace of change through our Global Gender Gap Report , and at current rates, it would take the world another 118 years – or until 2133 – to close the economic gap entirely.

In the 10 years the Forum has been reporting on the gap between men and women in health, education, economic opportunity and political representation, the gap has only narrowed by 4% overall.

Progress towards wage equality has stalled in the wake of the global financial crisis. This means that although an additional quarter of a billion women have entered the workforce, women are only now earning the amount men did in 2006.

Is education the main issue?

It is becoming apparent that reducing the gap between men and women in education does not automatically lead to a closing of the economic divide.

More women than men are now enrolled in university in the majority of countries covered by the Global Gender Gap Report , but men still outnumber women in skilled jobs.

Only four countries in the world – Philippines, Colombia, Fiji and Ghana – have more women than men in senior roles in the workplace.

So how do you increase women’s economic and political power?

The Forum’s work indicates that there is a strong correlation between economic and political empowerment. The two appear to reinforce each other.

As women get ahead at work they seek better representation in politics. Female politicians serve as role models and support policies that help people balancing formal work and informal care roles.

It is clear that achieving gender parity requires an understanding of a very complex interplay of factors that affect rights and opportunities for women.

Are we on the right track?

There has been a significant increase in awareness of the importance of gender parity and much has been done by international organizations, civil society, governments and business.

However, often the work centres on single-issue awareness-raising campaigns. Existing work also frequently involves either cooperation between different public bodies or different private bodies. More needs to be done to bridge the gap and facilitate cooperation between the public and private sectors.

What is the World Economic Forum doing about it?

The Forum's Global Gender Gap Report has done a great deal to highlight this issue and serves as a tool for measuring progress.

The Forum has many other initiatives in this area. It is carrying out an analysis of specific industries and using this to put together a set of best practices so that successful policies can be shared. It has also been working with countries to set up national gender parity taskforces, which bring together government and industry leaders to devise programmes and policies to close the gender gap.

Finally, we've carried out a survey on the future of jobs with a dedicated gender dimension to understand how expected changes in industry will affect women. The survey has looked at a wide range of industries with a view to identifying the challenges and opportunities the Fourth Industrial Revolution will bring.

This ground-breaking report, which will be published in Davos this month, will help shape the direction of national and international policies in this area in the years to come.

Click here for more information on the Forum's Global Challenge on Gender Parity .

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A global story

This piece is part of 19A: The Brookings Gender Equality Series . In this essay series, Brookings scholars, public officials, and other subject-area experts examine the current state of gender equality 100 years after the 19th Amendment was adopted to the U.S. Constitution and propose recommendations to cull the prevalence of gender-based discrimination in the United States and around the world.

The year 2020 will stand out in the history books. It will always be remembered as the year the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the globe and brought death, illness, isolation, and economic hardship. It will also be noted as the year when the death of George Floyd and the words “I can’t breathe” ignited in the United States and many other parts of the world a period of reckoning with racism, inequality, and the unresolved burdens of history.

The history books will also record that 2020 marked 100 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment in America, intended to guarantee a vote for all women, not denied or abridged on the basis of sex.

This is an important milestone and the continuing movement for gender equality owes much to the history of suffrage and the brave women (and men) who fought for a fairer world. Yet just celebrating what was achieved is not enough when we have so much more to do. Instead, this anniversary should be a galvanizing moment when we better inform ourselves about the past and emerge more determined to achieve a future of gender equality.

Australia’s role in the suffrage movement

In looking back, one thing that should strike us is how international the movement for suffrage was though the era was so much less globalized than our own.

For example, how many Americans know that 25 years before the passing of the 19th Amendment in America, my home of South Australia was one of the first polities in the world to give men and women the same rights to participate in their democracies? South Australia led Australia and became a global leader in legislating universal suffrage and candidate eligibility over 125 years ago.

This extraordinary achievement was not an easy one. There were three unsuccessful attempts to gain equal voting rights for women in South Australia, in the face of relentless opposition. But South Australia’s suffragists—including the Women’s Suffrage League and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, as well as remarkable women like Catherine Helen Spence, Mary Lee, and Elizabeth Webb Nicholls—did not get dispirited but instead continued to campaign, persuade, and cajole. They gathered a petition of 11,600 signatures, stuck it together page by page so that it measured around 400 feet in length, and presented it to Parliament.

The Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Bill was finally introduced on July 4, 1894, leading to heated debate both within the houses of Parliament, and outside in society and the media. Demonstrating that some things in Parliament never change, campaigner Mary Lee observed as the bill proceeded to committee stage “that those who had the least to say took the longest time to say it.” 1

The Bill finally passed on December 18, 1894, by 31 votes to 14 in front of a large crowd of women.

In 1897, Catherine Helen Spence became the first woman to stand as a political candidate in South Australia.

South Australia’s victory led the way for the rest of the colonies, in the process of coming together to create a federated Australia, to fight for voting rights for women across the entire nation. Women’s suffrage was in effect made a precondition to federation in 1901, with South Australia insisting on retaining the progress that had already been made. 2 South Australian Muriel Matters, and Vida Goldstein—a woman from the Australian state of Victoria—are just two of the many who fought to ensure that when Australia became a nation, the right of women to vote and stand for Parliament was included.

Australia’s remarkable progressiveness was either envied, or feared, by the rest of the world. Sociologists and journalists traveled to Australia to see if the worst fears of the critics of suffrage would be realised.

In 1902, Vida Goldstein was invited to meet President Theodore Roosevelt—the first Australian to ever meet a U.S. president in the White House. With more political rights than any American woman, Goldstein was a fascinating visitor. In fact, President Roosevelt told Goldstein: “I’ve got my eye on you down in Australia.” 3

Goldstein embarked on many other journeys around the world in the name of suffrage, and ran five times for Parliament, emphasising “the necessity of women putting women into Parliament to secure the reforms they required.” 4

Muriel Matters went on to join the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom. In 1908 she became the first woman to speak in the British House of Commons in London—not by invitation, but by chaining herself to the grille that obscured women’s views of proceedings in the Houses of Parliament. After effectively cutting her off the grille, she was dragged out of the gallery by force, still shouting and advocating for votes for women. The U.K. finally adopted women’s suffrage in 1928.

These Australian women, and the many more who tirelessly fought for women’s rights, are still extraordinary by today’s standards, but were all the more remarkable for leading the rest of the world.

A shared history of exclusion

Of course, no history of women’s suffrage is complete without acknowledging those who were excluded. These early movements for gender equality were overwhelmingly the remit of privileged white women. Racially discriminatory exclusivity during the early days of suffrage is a legacy Australia shares with the United States.

South Australian Aboriginal women were given the right to vote under the colonial laws of 1894, but they were often not informed of this right or supported to enroll—and sometimes were actively discouraged from participating.

They were later further discriminated against by direct legal bar by the 1902 Commonwealth Franchise Act, whereby Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were excluded from voting in federal elections—a right not given until 1962.

Any celebration of women’s suffrage must acknowledge such past injustices front and center. Australia is not alone in the world in grappling with a history of discrimination and exclusion.

The best historical celebrations do not present a triumphalist version of the past or convey a sense that the fight for equality is finished. By reflecting on our full history, these celebrations allow us to come together, find new energy, and be inspired to take the cause forward in a more inclusive way.

The way forward

In the century or more since winning women’s franchise around the world, we have made great strides toward gender equality for women in parliamentary politics. Targets and quotas are working. In Australia, we already have evidence that affirmative action targets change the diversity of governments. Since the Australian Labor Party (ALP) passed its first affirmative action resolution in 1994, the party has seen the number of women in its national parliamentary team skyrocket from around 14% to 50% in recent years.

Instead of trying to “fix” women—whether by training or otherwise—the ALP worked on fixing the structures that prevent women getting preselected, elected, and having fair opportunities to be leaders.

There is also clear evidence of the benefits of having more women in leadership roles. A recent report from Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership (GIWL) at King’s College London, shows that where women are able to exercise political leadership, it benefits not just women and girls, but the whole of society.

But even though we know how to get more women into parliament and the positive difference they make, progress toward equality is far too slow. The World Economic Forum tells us that if we keep progressing as we are, the global political empowerment gender gap—measuring the presence of women across Parliament, ministries, and heads of states across the world— will only close in another 95 years . This is simply too long to wait and, unfortunately, not all barriers are diminishing. The level of abuse and threatening language leveled at high-profile women in the public domain and on social media is a more recent but now ubiquitous problem, which is both alarming and unacceptable.

Across the world, we must dismantle the continuing legal and social barriers that prevent women fully participating in economic, political, and community life.

Education continues to be one such barrier in many nations. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women. With COVID-19-related school closures happening in developing countries, there is a real risk that progress on girls’ education is lost. When Ebola hit, the evidence shows that the most marginalized girls never made it back to school and rates of child marriage, teen pregnancy. and child labor soared. The Global Partnership for Education, which I chair, is currently hard at work trying to ensure that this history does not repeat.

Ensuring educational equality is a necessary but not sufficient condition for gender equality. In order to change the landscape to remove the barriers that prevent women coming through for leadership—and having their leadership fairly evaluated rather than through the prism of gender—we need a radical shift in structures and away from stereotypes. Good intentions will not be enough to achieve the profound wave of change required. We need hard-headed empirical research about what works. In my life and writings post-politics and through my work at the GIWL, sharing and generating this evidence is front and center of the work I do now.

GIWL work, undertaken in partnership with IPSOS Mori, demonstrates that the public knows more needs to be done. For example, this global polling shows the community thinks it is harder for women to get ahead. Specifically, they say men are less likely than women to need intelligence and hard work to get ahead in their careers.

Other research demonstrates that the myth of the “ideal worker,” one who works excessive hours, is damaging for women’s careers. We also know from research that even in families where each adult works full time, domestic and caring labor is disproportionately done by women. 5

In order to change the landscape to remove the barriers that prevent women coming through for leadership—and having their leadership fairly evaluated rather than through the prism of gender—we need a radical shift in structures and away from stereotypes.

Other more subtle barriers, like unconscious bias and cultural stereotypes, continue to hold women back. We need to start implementing policies that prevent people from being marginalized and stop interpreting overconfidence or charisma as indicative of leadership potential. The evidence shows that it is possible for organizations to adjust their definitions and methods of identifying merit so they can spot, measure, understand, and support different leadership styles.

Taking the lessons learned from our shared history and the lives of the extraordinary women across the world, we know evidence needs to be combined with activism to truly move forward toward a fairer world. We are in a battle for both hearts and minds.

Why this year matters

We are also at an inflection point. Will 2020 will be remembered as the year that a global recession disproportionately destroyed women’s jobs, while women who form the majority of the workforce in health care and social services were at risk of contracting the coronavirus? Will it be remembered as a time of escalating domestic violence and corporations cutting back on their investments in diversity programs?

Or is there a more positive vision of the future that we can seize through concerted advocacy and action? A future where societies re-evaluate which work truly matters and determine to better reward carers. A time when men and women forced into lockdowns re-negotiated how they approach the division of domestic labor. Will the pandemic be viewed as the crisis that, through forcing new ways of virtual working, ultimately led to more balance between employment and family life, and career advancement based on merit and outcomes, not presentism and the old boys’ network?

This history is not yet written. We still have an opportunity to make it happen. Surely the women who led the way 100 years ago can inspire us to seize this moment and create that better, more gender equal future.

• December 7,1894: Welcome home meeting for Catherine Helen Spence at the Café de Paris. [ Register , Dec, 19, 1894 ]
• Clare Wright, You Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World , (Text Publishing, 2018).
• Janette M. Bomford, That Dangerous and Persuasive Woman, (Melbourne University Press, 1993)
• Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences, (Icon Books, 2010)

This piece is part of 19A: The Brookings Gender Equality Series.  Learn more about the series and read published work »

About the Author

Julia gillard, distinguished fellow – global economy and development, center for universal education.

Gillard is a distinguished fellow with the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. She is the Inaugural Chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London. Gillard also serves as Chair of the Global Partnership for Education, which is dedicated to expanding access to quality education worldwide and is patron of CAMFED, the Campaign for Female Education.

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5 Powerful Essays Advocating for Gender Equality

Gender equality – which becomes reality when all genders are treated fairly and allowed equal opportunities –  is a complicated human rights issue for every country in the world. Recent statistics are sobering. According to the World Economic Forum, it will take 108 years to achieve gender parity . The biggest gaps are found in political empowerment and economics. Also, there are currently just six countries that give women and men equal legal work rights. Generally, women are only given ¾ of the rights given to men. To learn more about how gender equality is measured, how it affects both women and men, and what can be done, here are five essays making a fair point.

Take a free course on Gender Equality offered by top universities!

“Countries With Less Gender Equity Have More Women In STEM — Huh?” – Adam Mastroianni and Dakota McCoy

This essay from two Harvard PhD candidates (Mastroianni in psychology and McCoy in biology) takes a closer look at a recent study that showed that in countries with lower gender equity, more women are in STEM. The study’s researchers suggested that this is because women are actually especially interested in STEM fields, and because they are given more choice in Western countries, they go with different careers. Mastroianni and McCoy disagree.

They argue the research actually shows that cultural attitudes and discrimination are impacting women’s interests, and that bias and discrimination is present even in countries with better gender equality. The problem may lie in the Gender Gap Index (GGI), which tracks factors like wage disparity and government representation. To learn why there’s more women in STEM from countries with less gender equality, a more nuanced and complex approach is needed.

“Men’s health is better, too, in countries with more gender equality” – Liz Plank

When it comes to discussions about gender equality, it isn’t uncommon for someone in the room to say, “What about the men?” Achieving gender equality has been difficult because of the underlying belief that giving women more rights and freedom somehow takes rights away from men. The reality, however, is that gender equality is good for everyone. In Liz Plank’s essay, which is an adaption from her book For the Love of Men: A Vision for Mindful Masculinity, she explores how in Iceland, the #1 ranked country for gender equality, men live longer. Plank lays out the research for why this is, revealing that men who hold “traditional” ideas about masculinity are more likely to die by suicide and suffer worse health. Anxiety about being the only financial provider plays a big role in this, so in countries where women are allowed education and equal earning power, men don’t shoulder the burden alone.

Liz Plank is an author and award-winning journalist with Vox, where she works as a senior producer and political correspondent. In 2015, Forbes named her one of their “30 Under 30” in the Media category. She’s focused on feminist issues throughout her career.

“China’s #MeToo Moment” –  Jiayang Fan

Some of the most visible examples of gender inequality and discrimination comes from “Me Too” stories. Women are coming forward in huge numbers relating how they’ve been harassed and abused by men who have power over them. Most of the time, established systems protect these men from accountability. In this article from Jiayang Fan, a New Yorker staff writer, we get a look at what’s happening in China.

The essay opens with a story from a PhD student inspired by the United States’ Me Too movement to open up about her experience with an academic adviser. Her story led to more accusations against the adviser, and he was eventually dismissed. This is a rare victory, because as Fan says, China employs a more rigid system of patriarchy and hierarchy. There aren’t clear definitions or laws surrounding sexual harassment. Activists are charting unfamiliar territory, which this essay explores.

“Men built this system. No wonder gender equality remains as far off as ever.” – Ellie Mae O’Hagan

Freelance journalist Ellie Mae O’Hagan (whose book The New Normal is scheduled for a May 2020 release) is discouraged that gender equality is so many years away. She argues that it’s because the global system of power at its core is broken.  Even when women are in power, which is proportionally rare on a global scale, they deal with a system built by the patriarchy. O’Hagan’s essay lays out ideas for how to fix what’s fundamentally flawed, so gender equality can become a reality.

Ideas include investing in welfare; reducing gender-based violence (which is mostly men committing violence against women); and strengthening trade unions and improving work conditions. With a system that’s not designed to put women down, the world can finally achieve gender equality.

“Invisibility of Race in Gender Pay Gap Discussions” – Bonnie Chu

The gender pay gap has been a pressing issue for many years in the United States, but most discussions miss the factor of race. In this concise essay, Senior Contributor Bonnie Chu examines the reality, writing that within the gender pay gap, there’s other gaps when it comes to black, Native American, and Latina women. Asian-American women, on the other hand, are paid 85 cents for every dollar. This data is extremely important and should be present in discussions about the gender pay gap. It reminds us that when it comes to gender equality, there’s other factors at play, like racism.

Bonnie Chu is a gender equality advocate and a Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneur. She’s the founder and CEO of Lensational, which empowers women through photography, and the Managing Director of The Social Investment Consultancy.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Gender Equality Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on gender equality essay.

Equality or non-discrimination is that state where every individual gets equal opportunities and rights. Every individual of the society yearns for equal status, opportunity, and rights. However, it is a general observation that there exists lots of discrimination between humans. Discrimination exists because of cultural differences, geographical differences, and gender. Inequality based on gender is a concern that is prevalent in the entire world.  Even in the 21 st century, across globe men and women do not enjoy equal privileges. Gender equality means providing equal opportunities to both men and women in political, economic, education and health aspects.

Importance of Gender Equality

A nation can progress and attain higher development growth only when both men and women are entitled to equal opportunities. Women in the society are often cornered and are refrained from getting equal rights as men to health, education, decision-making and economic independence in terms of wages.

The social structure that prevails since long in such a way that girls do not get equal opportunities as men. Women generally are the caregivers in the family. Because of this, women are mostly involved in household activities. There is lesser participation of women in higher education, decision-making roles, and leadership roles. This gender disparity is a hindrance in the growth rate of a country. When women participate in the workforce increases the economic growth rate of the country increases. Gender equality increases the overall wellbeing of the nation along with economic prosperity .

How is Gender Equality Measured?

Gender equality is an important factor in determining a country’s overall growth. There are several indexes to measure gender equality.

Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) –   GDI is a gender centric measure of Human Development Index. GDI considers parameters like life expectancy, education, and incomes in assessing the gender equality of a country.

Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) – This measure includes much detail aspects like the proportion of seats than women candidates hold in national parliament, percentage of women at economic decision-making role, the income share of female employees.

Gender Equity Index (GEI) – GEI ranks countries on three parameters of gender inequality, those are education, economic participation, and empowerment. However, GEI ignores the health parameter.

Global Gender Gap Index – The World Economic Forum introduced the Global Gender Gap Index in 2006. This index focuses more on identifying the level of female disadvantage. The four important areas that the index considers are economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment, health, and survival rate.

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Gender Inequality in India

As per the World Economic Forum’s gender gap ranking, India stands at rank 108 out of 149 countries. This rank is a major concern as it highlights the immense gap in opportunities in women with comparison to men. In Indian society from a long time back, the social structure has been such that the women are neglected in many areas like education, health, decision-making areas, financial independence, etc.

Another major reason, which contributes to the discriminatory behavior towards women in India, is the dowry system in marriage.  Because of this dowry system, most Indian families consider girls as a burden.  Preference for son still prevails. Girls have refrained from higher education. Women are not entitled to equal job opportunities and wages. In the 21 st century, women are still preferred gender in home managing activities. Many women quit their job and opt-out from leadership roles because of family commitments. However, such actions are very uncommon among men.

For overall wellbeing and growth of a nation, scoring high on gender equality is the most crucial aspect. Countries with less disparity in gender equality have progressed a lot. The government of India has also started taking steps to ensure gender equality. Several laws and policies are prepared to encourage girls. “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana ” (Save girl, and make girls educated) campaign is created to spread awareness of the importance of girl child.  Several laws to protect girls are also there. However, we need more awareness of spreading knowledge of women rights . In addition, the government should take initiatives to check the correct and proper implementation of policies.

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• Gender Equality Essay

Introduction to Gender Equality

In a society, everyone has the right to lead his/her life accordingly without any discrimination. When this state is achieved where all individuals are considered to be equal irrespective of their caste, gender, colour, profession, and status, we call it equality. Equality can also be defined as the situation where every individual has the same rights and equal opportunity to grow and prosper. 

Every individual of society dreams for equal rights and access to resources available at their disposal, but there is a lot of discrimination. This discrimination can be due to cultural differences, geographical differences, the colour of the individual, social status and even gender. The most prevalent discrimination is gender inequality. It is not a localised issue and is limited to only certain spheres of life but is prevalent across the globe. Even in progressive societies and top organisations, we can see many examples of gender bias. 

Gender equality can only be achieved when both male and female individuals are treated similarly. But discrimination is a social menace that creates division. We stop being together and stand together to tackle our problems. This social stigma has been creeping into the underbelly of all of society for many centuries. This has also been witnessed in gender-based cases. Gender inequality is the thing of the past as both men and women are creating history in all segments together.

Gender Equality builds a Nation

In this century, women and men enjoy the same privileges. The perception is changing slowly but steadily. People are now becoming more aware of their rights and what they can do in a free society. It has been found that when women and men hold the same position and participate equally, society progresses exclusively and creates a landmark. When a community reaches gender equality, everyone enjoys the same privileges and gets similar scopes in education, health, occupation, and political aspect. Even in the family, when both male and female members are treated in the same way, it is the best place to grow, learn, and add great value.

A nation needs to value every gender equally to progress at the right place. A society attains better development in all aspects when both genders are entitled to similar opportunities. Equal rights in decision making, health, politics, infrastructure, profession, etc will surely advance our society to a new level. The social stigma of women staying inside the house has changed. Nowadays, girls are equally competing with boys in school. They are also creating landmark development in their respective profession. Women are now seeking economic independence before they get married. It gives them the confidence to stand against oppression and make better decisions for themselves.

The age-old social structure dictated that women need to stay inside the home taking care of all when men go out to earn bread and butter. This has been practised for ages when the world outside was not safe. Now that the time has changed and we have successfully made our environment quite safer, women can step forward, get educated, pursue their passion, bring economic balance in their families, and share the weight of a family with men. This, in a cumulative way, will also make a country’s economy progress faster and better.

Methods to measure Gender Equality

Gender equality can be measured and a country’s growth can be traced by using the following methods.

Gender Development Index (GDI) is a gender-based calculation done similar to the Human Development Index. 

Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) is a detailed calculation method of the percentage of female members in decision-making roles. 

Gender Equity Index (GEI) considers economic participation, education, and empowerment.

Global Gender Gap Index assesses the level of gender inequality present on the basis of four criteria: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment, health and survival .

According to the Gender Gap Index (GGI), India ranks 140 among 156 participating countries. This denotes that the performance of India has fallen from the previous years, denoting negative growth in terms of closing the gender gap. In the current environment where equality and equal opportunities are considered supreme, this makes India be at a significant disadvantage.

Roadblocks to Gender Equality  

Indian society is still wrecked by such stigmas that dictate that women are meant to manage the home and stay indoors. This is being done for ages, leading to neglect of women in areas like education, health, wealth, and socio-economic fields. 

In addition to that, the dowry system is further crippling society. This ill practice had led to numerous female feticides. It has created a notion that girls are a burden on a family, which is one of the primary reasons a girl child cannot continue her education. Even if they excel in education and become independent, most of them are forced to quit their job as their income is considered a backup source, which is not fair. New-age women are not only independent, but they are confident too. The only thing they demand from society is support, which we should provide them.  

Along with dowry, there is one more burning issue that has a profound impact on women's growth. It is prevalent in all kinds of society and is known as violence. Violence against women is present in one or another form in public and private spaces. Sometimes, violence is accompanied by other burning issues such as exploitation, harassment, and trafficking, making the world unsafe for women. We must take steps to stop this and ensure a safe and healthy place for women.  

Poverty is also one of the major roadblocks towards gender equality. It has led to other malpractices such as child marriage, sale of children, trafficking and child labour, to name a few. Providing equal job opportunities and upliftment of people below the poverty line can help bring some checks onto this.

Initiative Towards Gender Equality

Any kind of discrimination acts as a roadblock in any nation’s growth, and a nation can only prosper when all its citizens have equal rights. Most of the developed countries has comparatively less gender discrimination and provide equal opportunity to both genders. Even the Indian government is taking multiple initiatives to cut down gender discrimination. 

They have initiated a social campaign called “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana” to encourage the education of girl children. Besides this, the government runs multiple other schemes, such as the Women Helpline Scheme, UJJAWALA, National Mission for Empowerment of Women, etc., to generate awareness among the people. Moreover, as responsible citizens, it is our responsibility to spread knowledge on gender discrimination to create a beautiful world for wome n [1] [2] .

FAQs on Gender Equality Essay

1. What Makes Women Unequal to Men?

The social stigmas and beliefs that have been running deeply in the veins of all families make women unequal to men. Women are considered to be a burden by many families and are not provided with the same rights men enjoy in society. We are ill-informed regarding women’s rights and tend to continue age-old practices. This is made worse with social menaces such as the dowry system, child labor, child marriage, etc. Women can gather knowledge, get educated, and compete with men. This is sometimes quite threatening to the false patriarchal society.

2. How can We Promote Gender Equality?

Education is the prime measure to be taken to make society free from such menaces. When we teach our new generation regarding the best social practices and gender equal rights, we can eradicate such menaces aptly. Our society is ill-informed regarding gender equality and rights. Many policies have been designed and implemented by the government. As our country holds the second position in terms of population, it is hard to tackle these gender-based problems. It can only be erased from the deepest point by using education as the prime weapon.

3. Why should Women be Equal to Men?

Women might not be similar to men in terms of physical strength and physiological traits. Both are differently built biologically but they have the same brain and organs to function. Women these days are creating milestones that are changing society. They have traveled to space, running companies, creating history, and making everyone proud. Women are showing their capabilities in every phase and hence, they should be equal to men in all aspects.

4. Mention a few initiatives started by the Indian Government to enable gender equality.

The Indian government has initiated a social campaign called “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana” to encourage girls’ education. Besides this, the government runs multiple other schemes, such as the  Women Helpline Scheme, UJJAWALA, National Mission for Empowerment of Women, etc., to generate awareness among the people.

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Gender Equality Essay

Everyone should live as they want in society, and there should be no discrimination. Equality in society is achieved when all people, regardless of their caste, gender, colour, profession, and status rank, are considered equal. Another way to describe equality is that everyone gets the same rights and opportunities to develop and progress forward. Here are a few sample essays on ‘Gender Equality’.

100 Words Essay On Gender Equality

Gender equality is the belief that men and women should be treated and perceived as equals in society, including all areas such as education, employment, and in decision-making positions. It is a fundamental human right and a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world.

Despite significant progress in advancing gender equality, women and girls continue to face barriers and discrimination in many areas of society. This includes the gender pay gap, difficult access to education and employment opportunities, and limited representation in leadership positions. Creating a more equal society benefits everyone, as it leads to greater prosperity and happiness for all. It is important for individuals, communities, and governments to work towards achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls to reach their full potential.

200 Words Essay On Gender Equality

Gender equality is the equal treatment and perception of individuals of all genders in society.

Importance Of Gender Equality

Gender equality is important because it is a fundamental human right and is necessary for a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable society. When everyone, regardless of their gender, is treated fairly and has equal opportunities, it can lead to greater prosperity and happiness for all.

Additionally, gender equality can have a positive impact on economic growth and development. When women and girls are able to fully participate and get proper education and employment opportunities, it can lead to increased productivity and innovation. It can also contribute to more balanced and representative decision-making, which can lead to more effective and fair policies and practices.

Furthermore, gender equality is essential for promoting social justice and fairness. When women and girls are marginalized and discriminated against, it can lead to a range of negative outcomes, including poverty, poor health, and reduced opportunities for personal and professional development. Overall, the promotion of gender equality is important for creating a more equal, fair, and just society for all.

Encouraging Gender Equality

Efforts to promote gender equality must involve the active participation and engagement of both men and women. This includes challenging and changing harmful gender norms and stereotypes, and promoting policies and laws that protect and advance the rights of women and girls.

500 Words Essay On Gender Equality

Everyone in the country has the same fundamental freedom to pursue happiness whichever way they see fit. It's possible if people of various backgrounds (race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic class, gender) are treated with respect and dignity. Gender disparity is the most noticeable kind of prejudice. Gender discrimination persists even in many modern nations and calls for immediate action. When men and women are given the same opportunities, we will achieve gender equality. Furthermore, this essay will outline the many issues women encounter due to gender discrimination.

Prevalence Of Gender Inequality

Gender inequality is prevalent in many sectors and areas of society. Some examples include:

Education: Women and girls may face barriers to accessing education, such as lack of resources, cultural or societal barriers, and discrimination.

Employment: Women and girls may face discrimination in the workplace, including lower pay for the same work as men, lack of promotion opportunities, and limited representation in leadership positions.

Health care: Women and girls may face discrimination and inadequate access to quality health care, particularly in areas related to reproductive and sexual health.

Political representation: Women are often underrepresented in political leadership positions and decision-making processes.

Domestic violence: Women and girls may face higher rates of domestic violence and abuse, and may lack adequate protection and support from the justice system.

Media and advertising: Women and girls are often portrayed in stereotypical and objectifying ways in the media and advertising, which can reinforce harmful gender norms and stereotypes.

Gender inequality is a widespread issue that affects many areas of society, and it is important to work towards promoting gender equality in all sectors.

How India Can Achieve Gender Equality

Achieving gender equality in India will require a multi-faceted approach that involves addressing social norms and stereotypes, strengthening laws and policies, increasing women's representation in leadership positions, promoting women's economic empowerment, and improving access to health care.

Address social norms and stereotypes: It is important to challenge and change harmful gender norms and stereotypes that contribute to gender inequality. This can be done through education campaigns and programs that promote gender equality and challenge traditional gender roles.

Strengthen laws and policies: India can work to strengthen laws and policies that protect and advance the rights of women and girls, such as laws against domestic violence and discrimination, and policies that promote equal pay for equal work and access to education and employment.

Increase women's representation in leadership positions: India can work to increase the representation of women in leadership positions, including in politics, business, and other sectors, to ensure that women have a stronger voice in decision-making processes.

Promote women's economic empowerment: Providing women with access to education, employment, and financial resources can help to empower them and enable them to fully participate in society.

Improve access to health care: Ensuring that women and girls have access to quality health care, including reproductive and sexual health care, is essential for promoting gender equality.

My Experience

I remember one time when I was working as an intern at a small consulting firm. At the end of my internship, I was offered a full-time position. However, when I received the offer letter, I noticed that my male colleagues who were also being offered full-time positions had been offered a higher salary than me, even though we had all performed the same job duties during our internships.

I was frustrated and felt that I was being treated unfairly because of my gender. I decided to bring this issue to the attention of my supervisor, and after some negotiation, I was able to secure a salary that was equal to that of my male colleagues.

This experience taught me the importance of advocating for myself and not accepting inequality, and it also made me more aware of the ways in which gender bias can manifest in the workplace. I believe that it is important for individuals to speak up and take action when they see instances of gender inequality, and for organizations to make a conscious effort to promote gender equality and fairness in all aspects of their operations.

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The Future of Nursing

How to attain gender equality in nursing—an essay, thomas kearns.

1 Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland

2 Centre for Nursing and Midwifery Advancement, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland

Tackling stereotypes and assumptions that deter men from nursing is essential to meet the growing shortage of nurses and improve diversity, say Thomas Kearns and Paul Mahon

The covid-19 pandemic shows that where, when, how, and to whom care is delivered has never been more diverse. In today’s healthcare, the people delivering care must be similarly diverse, for the benefit of the profession, its practitioners, and patients. 1 2 3 Yet around 90% of the world’s nurses are women. 4 Calls are being made, as they have before, to examine ways to promote the profession among men to tackle this imbalance. 1 5

Nursing is an inherently human experience: it is done for humans, by humans, and as humans, and in human experience no one gender claims primacy. Men have had, and continue to have, a valuable contribution to make to nursing, not simply because they are male but because they are human. Men enter the profession for the same reason as women—to care for people.

Huge shortage

Nurses are often the first, and sometimes the only, healthcare provider that a patient sees, 6 making them well positioned to respond to healthcare challenges at every level. One of the key challenges affecting the achievement of the sustainable development goals of health and wellbeing, 7 is the worldwide shortage of nurses. Recruiting more men is essential to tackle this shortage.

The world faces a deficit of 13.5 million nurses in the next decade. 4 8 In its first report on the state of the world’s nursing, 6 the World Health Organization estimated that an additional six million nurses will be needed by 2030. This is a 20% increase from the current total global nursing stock of 27.9 million. In addition, the burden of anticipated retirement over the next decade means that 4.7 million new nurses must be recruited just to maintain current staffing levels. 4 It is too early to say what effect the covid-19 pandemic will have on intention to join the profession, but initial estimates are that at least a further 10% will leave. 9 Data to monitor the effect of covid-19 on recruitment and retention of nurses will be vital.

Recent changes in society, healthcare globally, and nursing have seen more men entering the profession. In general, their number varies across regions ( table 1 ) and remains stubbornly low in some countries and clinical specialties such as obstetrics. 10 The reasons for this are unclear but may include cultural perceptions of the role of men and women in society, the status of nursing itself, or the pay and conditions of nurses. For example, a higher proportion of male nurses in some countries may reflect societal perceptions of the role of women, and vice versa. Further research into this area may provide useful insights into gender equity for all.

Percentage of male nurses worldwide*

Why are men under-represented?

Contrary to the common perception that male nurses are a relatively recent phenomenon, men in nursing can be traced to 1600BC ( box 1 ). 16 History speaks of military and religious orders such as the Parabalani (“those who disregard their lives”)—a group of men who cared for people with leprosy in Alexandria in AD416, or St Camillus de Lellis, who in AD1535 vowed to care for sick and dying people. 5 12 The Maltese cross, a symbol of humanitarianism worn by the Knights Hospitaller in 1099, was subsequently adopted by the Nightingale School of Nursing in London. 14

Brief history of men in nursing

• 250BC: First nursing school in the world started in India. Only men were considered “pure” enough to become nurses 11 12
• AD416-18: The Theodosian codes refer to the Parabolani—a group of 500 poor men who cared for the lepers of Alexandria 5 12
• 1095: Order of the Brothers of St Anthony founded (merged with the Knights of Malta in 1775) to care for people inflicted with the medieval disease of St Anthony’s fire 13 14 15
• 1099: Knight Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem founded to care for sick and injured pilgrims en route to and from the Holy Land 13 15
• 1119: Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem founded
• 1180: Order of the Hospitallers of the Holy Spirit and the Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit founded
• 1192: Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, or the Teutonic Knights, founded
• 1334: The Beghards (renamed Alexian Brothers after Saint Alexis in 1469) cared for the poor, the lepers, and the “morons and lunatics” of Europe 5 14 16
• 1535: St John of God began studying under the monks of St Jerome and cared for the ill and mistreated
• 1585: St Camillus de Lellis became a priest and established a religious order, vowing to care for the sick and dying even with danger to his own life
• 1600s–1700s: Protestant reformation led to the closure of monasteries and convents across Europe resulting in a loss of records of organized nursing activity 14 16
• 1780s: Nurse James Durham (or Derham) became the first African American in the United States to practise medicine 12
• 1850–1950s : War began to alter nursing, and the role of men within it
• 1859: Florence Nightingale publishes Notes on Nursing , suggesting “every woman is a nurse”
• 1861–65: American civil war: more women became nurses in civilian life 12
• 1877: St John Ambulance Association founded (derived from the Knight Hospitallers )
• 1884: The Male Nurses (Temperance) Cooperation founded
• 1892: The Male Nurses Mutual Benefit Association founded
• 1888−1914: Alexian Brothers and other orders built hospitals throughout Chicago, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, and Pennsylvania. Increasingly, men became nurses at their own social peril, experiencing discrimination, pay inequality, role erosion, and exclusion from formal nurse education 2 17
• 1914–18: American men were prohibited from practising in the US Army Nursing Corps
• 1919: The Nurses Act in England barred men from entering the general register. 5 11 14 15 Internationally, men found it difficult to access formal training and where they did, their training was shorter and lacked the curricular content of their female counterparts 5 15
• 1937: Society of Registered Male Nurses founded
• 1950s: Men begin to be recognized in nursing in the US, Czechoslovakia, the UK, 2 14 and towards the 1970s, in Denmark and Sweden 15
• 1971: American Assembly for Men in Nursing founded

By the mid-1800s as men fought and died during the Crimean, American civil, and other wars, more women became nurses. In the years after the introduction of the epochal Nightingale reforms, men were increasingly excluded from formal nurse education and eventually were barred from the English general register. 2 5 11 14 15 17

Combined with the gender based division of labor, and Victorian righteousness regarding the place of women in society, 14 15 16 18 the feminization of caring within the hierarchical male dominated medical model meant men wishing to do the dirty “women’s work” were classified as deviant, undesirable, or unable to get a “real man’s” job. As caring became devalued, more men were forced to find occupations with better pay so they could provide for their families. 16

The decline of the male nurse is a complex product of cultural, historical, economic, and political factors. In modern times, the move from the hospital based apprenticeship model of education to the tertiary setting has helped establish nursing as a profession. But rising entry requirements have not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in remuneration, making nursing a less attractive career option for men and women. In addition, gendered and inaccurate representations of nursing and male nurses limit the public’s perception and affect the recruitment and retention of men. 3 19

Men in the profession have also experienced stigmatization and have been disparately positioned as being both dominant and dominated, victimized and valorized, and of benefiting from the hidden advantages of status shield and status bonus that their gender affords. 20 21

Studies show that adverse stereotypes affect male nurses’ physical and emotional wellbeing, resulting in depression, demotivation, and in some cases their exit from the profession. 19 The perpetuation of such stereotypes and gender based labels injures the profession, preserves segregation, and stifles the pursuance of gender equality for all. 1 6 22 Moreover, they compound the shortage of nurses, limit diversity in the workplace, and deny patients of both genders a holistic caring environment. 1 5 23

What can be done?

Increasing the number of men in nursing is seen as difficult because of the erroneous perception that nursing is a female-only profession, sexist stereotypes of the male nurse being less masculine, 11 13 16 and nurses’ undervalued status and pay. Solutions are as complex as the genesis of the 200 year decline of men in nursing. There is no quick fix, and change requires political, sociocultural, and professional action. Although some solutions will be universal, ultimately each country and culture will have to determine what works best for them. Nurse leaders and politicians should offer long term, strategic solutions beyond mere marketing campaigns. 3

Better public understanding

That is not to say that marketing is not needed. Indeed, given the publicity afforded to the profession during the pandemic, now is an ideal time to set aside the nostalgic view of nursing 3 and capitalize on a contemporary civic conception of caring, competence, and capability throughout clinical settings from community to critical care.

The public has seen nurses caring for ventilated patients, using tablet computers so that family members could say goodbye to loved ones, leading covid testing centres, and innovating in practice. We have heard stories of nurses’ adaptability, resilience, determination, camaraderie, and composure. We have seen them hold patients’ hands and hold governments to account while fighting for proper personal protective equipment. This has given the public a better insight into the art and science of caring in modern healthcare, which we can build on to attract more men, and women, to the profession.

Neither patients nor the public fully understand the complexity of nurses’ work. 3 Highlighting nurses’ roles across domains of practice, registration status, and stage of career could promote a more realistic understanding, not just of men in nursing but of nursing itself. 24 Campaigns such as Nursing Now have raised the status and profile of nursing, and this momentum must be maintained. As part of this, we must de-gender and revalue caring 1 by attaining a gender balance and by continuing to advocate for better pay and conditions for nurses. 25

Better recruitment

Men enter and stay in nursing for many of the same reasons as women, and ultimately, they do so to care for patients. 24 Therefore, recruitment strategies that dispel the myths surrounding the male nurse while promoting the inherent values of nursing are needed. 10 We can look to countries with higher percentages of male nurses for direction.

For men becoming nurses mid-career, graduate entry should be an option—not just in terms of access to a place on the program but also with financial support to facilitate the uptake of that place. As countries seek to increase the number of nursing graduates, consideration could also be given to a specific allocation of places to male applicants to show that men are both missing and needed in nursing. 17 Many male nurse societies were established in the mid-1800s, and such social supports, including the provision of male role models, will help retain men in the profession.

More financial investment

WHO recommends that nursing education be considered a science subject. 6 Therefore, nursing should be afforded the status, pay, and benefits of other science and technology professions. For example, a senior staff nurse (a nurse with over 20 years’ experience) in Ireland earns just under €50 000 (£43 000; $61 000) in base pay a year whereas a pharmacist earns the same after seven years and up to €67 000 after 13 years. 26

Adequate pay and acceptable working conditions, 6 mobility, and opportunity for personal and professional advancement must underpin and be highlighted in recruitment and retention initiatives.

Confrontation of stereotypes

Stereotypical assumptions must be challenged at school and societal level in careers guidance, mainstream and social media, and popular culture so that boys know that nursing is a valid career option. 3 19 27 28 29 This will require greater intersectoral and cross government collaboration from the early years to higher education levels, 6 and for broadcasters to consider how their programming may negatively portray nursing and male nurses. We must robustly voice our objection to any outdated overtures that disenfranchise the profession and the people within it.

We must also promote professional acceptance and challenge stereotypes and assumptions in the profession itself—such as those in relation to male nurses’ sexuality, ability to care, or reasons for entering the profession. For example, the literature often refers to the “hidden advantage” of male nurses and the over-representation of men in leadership positions without examining broadly why this is so.

Although there may be many individual and institutional reasons for this “glass elevator,” including conscious and unconscious bias, hegemonic masculinity, explicit or tacit discrimination, continuity of employment, organizational gendering practices, or the personal and professional characteristics of the individual nurse, 17 30 31 such discussion conflates the problem of attracting men to the profession with the career progression of all nurses. Indeed, examining ways to empower all nurses thorough initiatives such as the International Council of Nurses’ global nurse consultants initiative will help improve health, promote gender equality, and support economic growth. 32

Continuing men’s long history in nursing

Men have a rich and varied history in nursing, a history that is somewhat lost to the last 200 years and the often misquoted preface of Florence Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing that “every woman is a nurse.” Less well quoted, however, is her full contention that “While it has been said and written scores of times, that every woman makes a good nurse I believe, on the contrary, that the very elements of nursing are all but unknown.”

The consequences of the lack of men in nursing can be considered in terms of the effect on male nurses themselves, the profession as a whole, and on the patients that nurses serve.

To increase the number of men in nursing, it is important to highlight to men their historical past and their potential future in a rewarding, contemporary career with myriad clinical, academic, and professional development opportunities. The profession must continue to lobby governments to move beyond mere platitudes and actually provide parity of pay and esteem. We must portray to the public the true scope and complexity of our professional practice, 3 and we must build a profession for all through robust policy that focuses on education, jobs, practice, and leadership.

Competing interests: We have read and understood BMJ policy on declaration of interests and declare that we have no competing interests.

Provenance and peer review: Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

This article is part of a series commissioned by The BMJ for the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH). The BMJ peer reviewed, edited, and made the decision to publish. The series, including open access fees, is funded by WISH.

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Gender Equality — The Importance Of Gender Equality For Sustainable Future

The Importance of Gender Equality for Sustainable Future

• Categories: Gender Equality Teenage Pregnancy Women's Rights

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Words: 1553 |

Published: Jan 28, 2021

Words: 1553 | Pages: 3 | 8 min read

Bibliography

• “Gender Equality.” European Institute for Gender Equality, EIGE, 2015, eige.europa.eu/thesaurus/terms/1168. Accessed 6 Sept. 2019.
• Darrah, Petrina. “Why Is Gender Equality Important? | GVI UK.” Gvi.Co.Uk, GVI, 11 June 2019, www.gvi.co.uk/blog/why-is-gender-equality-important/. Accessed 6 Sept. 2019.
• “Facts and Figures: Economic Empowerment.” UN Women, 2019, www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/economic-empowerment/facts-and-figures. Accessed 6 Sept. 2019.
• Renaud_I. GENDER EQUALITY IN EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: Meeting of the OECD Council at Ministerial Level. 2012.
• “Teen Pregnancy Issues and Challenges - Asociación Americana Del Embarazo.” Asociación Americana Del Embarazo, 16 July 2019, americanpregnancy.org/unplanned-pregnancy/teen-pregnancy-issues-challenges/. Accessed 6 Sept. 2019.
• Instituto Nacional de las Mujeres. “Estrategia Nacional Para La Prevención Del Embarazo En Adolescentes.” Gob.Mx, 2019, www.gob.mx/inmujeres/acciones-y-programas/estrategia-nacional-para-la-prevencion-del-embarazo-en-adolescentes-33454. Accessed 8 Sept. 2019.
• https://www.facebook.com/unesco. “Priority Gender Equality.” UNESCO, 25 June 2019, en.unesco.org/genderequality. Accessed 7 Sept. 2019.
• “Mexican Political System.” Sre.Gob.Mx, 2014, globalmx.sre.gob.mx/index.php/en/democracy-and-rule-of-law/mexican-political-system. Accessed 8 Sept. 2019.
• “Goal 5: Gender Equality - SDG Tracker.” Our World in Data, 2013, sdg-tracker.org/gender-equality. Accessed 8 Sept. 2019.
• Sistema, del. “Incidencia Delictiva.” Gob.Mx, 2019, www.gob.mx/sesnsp/acciones-y-programas/incidencia-delictiva-87005. Accessed 8 Sept. 2019.
• “Infographic: Women in Politics in Latin America | AS/COA.” AS/COA, 2018, www.as-coa.org/articles/infographic-women-politics-latin-america. Accessed 8 Sept. 2019.
• “Facts and Figures: Leadership and Political Participation.” UN Women, 2019, www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/leadership-and-political-participation/facts-and-figures. Accessed 8 Sept. 2019.
• “Wib 2019 Report.” Grant Thornton International Ltd. Home, 2019, www.grantthornton.global/en/insights/women-in-business-2019/women-in-business-report-2019/. Accessed 8 Sept. 2019.
• “ Labor Force Participation Rate, Female (% of Female Population Ages 15+) (Modeled ILO Estimate) | Data.” Worldbank.Org, 2019, data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS?locations=MX&view=chart. Accessed 8 Sept. 2019.
• “Building an Inclusive Mexico - Policies and Good Governance for Gender Equality - En - OECD.” Oecd.Org, 2017, www.oecd.org/mexico/building-an-inclusive-mexico-9789264265493-en.htm. Accessed 8 Sept. 2019.
• “Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture. Third Edition.” Ilo.Org, 30 Apr. 2018, www.ilo.org/global/publications/books/WCMS_626831/lang--en/index.htm, Print: 9789221315803,Web PDF: 9789221315810. Accessed 8 Sept. 2019.

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Gender equality, youth aspirations keys to sustainable peace, Security Council hears

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Gender equality and the aspirations of young people are crucial for ensuring sustainable peace and security, the UN’s top political and peacebuilding official told the Security Council on Tuesday.

Addressing ambassadors at the Council’s open debate on the role of women and youth, UN Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo highlighted the significant challenges and impacts faced by women.

“Women bear the brunt of the global rollback of human rights,” she stated.

She referenced her recent visit to Afghanistan, where women are systematically denied basic rights, including education and employment opportunities.

“Women I met in Kabul told me of their aspirations and dreams: the same education afforded to men, equal employment opportunities and freedom to choose their futures. They look to the global community to support them in realizing their rights so that they can contribute to their country’s future,” she said.

Dismantle structural inequalities

Ms. DiCarlo pointed out that Afghanistan is not unique in that regard and that commitments on gender equality “are being ignored, if not reversed, in many regions”.

She underscored the importance of the Secretary-General’s New Agenda for Peace , which calls for dismantling patriarchal power structures and ensuring women’s equal access.

“Doing away with structural gender inequalities is a matter of equity and right,” she asserted.

“But, it is also a powerful means to improve the chances of success of peace and political processes,” she added, emphasising that UN special political missions have strived to promote women’s rights and meaningful participation in peace processes.

Youth inclusion

Youth inclusion was another critical focus of the Under-Secretary-General’s remarks.

She highlighted the need for young people to shape their futures and participate safely in peace processes and electoral activities.

“ They [young people] are not ‘adults in the making’ ,” she said. “They are full human beings with hopes, aspirations, ideas and energy to contribute right now.”

She stressed that engaging youth in peace processes is a missed opportunity that governments should seize to rebuild trust in institutions and increase intergenerational solidarity.

Supporting youth participation

To support youth participation, the UN is allocating resources from the Peacebuilding Fund to back national action plans for youth, peace and security.

Regional efforts, such as the African Union's framework and the Arab regional youth, peace and security strategy, are also instrumental in catalysing national actions, she said.

Environmental peacebuilding, where young women often play leading roles, was another area highlighted, as Ms. DiCarlo called for recognising and advancing the contributions of young environmental defenders, community leaders and peacebuilders.

In conclusion, Ms. DiCarlo emphasised that transformative changes rely on national action involving all segments of society, supported by international efforts. The Security Council , she urged, can reinforce that woman, along with men, are responsible for building peace and prosperity in their societies.

“Gender equality and realising the aspirations of young people are essential for sustainable peace and security around the world,” she said.

SDG 16: INCLUSIVE SOCIETIES

• Reduce all forms of violence and related death rates
• End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and violence against children
• Promote rule of law at national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice
• Reduce illicit financial and arms flows, and combat organized crime
• Reduce corruption and bribery
• Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions
• Strengthen relevant institutions to prevent violence and combat terrorism and crime

More than 108.4 million people had been forcibly displaced by the end of 2022, over 2.5 times the number reported a decade ago.

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Speech: Looking forward to a future of gender equality

Closing remarks by under-secretary-general of the united nations and executive director of un women, sima bahous, at the annual session of the un women executive board, 22 june 2022..

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[As delivered.]

Distinguished delegates, I would like to thank the President of the Executive Board, H.E. Ambassador Fatima Rabab—my good friend, your good friend—for leading us through the annual session so effectively. And we look forward, like we said earlier in the opening, to continuing to work with her in her new capacity as our best ally for gender equality within the system. So, thank you.

I would also like to thank the Vice-Presidents, and all those who have contributed to the robust discussion of this session’s significant agenda. I appreciate very much the collaborative and constructive spirit in which we are able to approach all topics. Congratulations on the adoption of the robust decisions that will guide our work.

Your engagement, distinguished delegates, in setting these joint directions signals the deep value of the multilateral process and our ability to chart a unified path for the future of UN Women. I leave the meeting today with renewed energy for the months and the years ahead.

In that regard, I also thank the delegations for their wide-ranging and perceptive remarks over the past two days.

Among the long-standing supporters of UN Women within this Board, and within your ranks of delegates, allow me to recognize, in particular, Mr. Markus Reisle, who returns to Bern as Chief of Staff at the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation. We have deeply appreciated your skilful support during negotiations and wish you well in your new role.

Excellencies, at this session we have presented the results of the 2018–2021 period and looked ahead to the areas of focus under the new Strategic Plan . I greatly valued your guidance and feedback on this.

I would like to reiterate my remarks on our institutional strengthening efforts to enhance the transparency, accountability, and fiduciary strength of the organization. I would also like to be clear that we have heard the valuable feedback from our Independent Audit and Evaluation Service and our Audit Advisory Committee. Allow me to assure you of my personal commitment that we will take action as promised.

In my opening statement , I undertook to establish a dedicated ethics function within UN Women.   Thank you for your positive response. This confirms to me that this is the right decision. I will take action to strengthen our capacity in this area. I will ensure the highest standards of conduct in our organization, including protection of whistle-blowers, and report regularly on this to the Board from 2023. The Board’s formal decision on this subject is also welcome.

I share the Board’s views on your crucial oversight role. We will reflect carefully with you on how to make this role more effective, in addition to other aspects of internal controls of our organizational effectiveness and efficiency, such as robust anti-fraud mechanisms and strengthened audit and evaluation functions.

You have placed your trust in us, and we are committed to continuing to deserve it. I am grateful for your positive comments in regard to our success in mobilizing non-core resources, growing our regular resources, and maintaining a 30 per cent core to non-core ratio. We will continue to diversify and broaden our donor base, strengthening our strategic partnerships with international financial institutions and the work around innovative financing such as gender bonds. We will also pursue the success of multi-stakeholder partnerships in support of gender equality and women’s empowerment, such as Generation Equality , noting at the same time our shared regard for national ownership to ensure sensitivity to local contexts.

Excellencies, it is that strong relationship between country objectives and programme implementation that we saw reflected in the results of the Strategic Plan 2018–2021 . Your acknowledgement of the work that has been done to put in place gender-responsive laws, policies, and strategies at country level is especially important in the context of recovery, amidst the current political and economic turmoil.

However, as we have noted, we are still too far from achieving our shared Sustainable Development Goals .

I am pleased that the COVID-19 Policy Tracker has been useful to highlight the gaps and identify priorities. Among those gaps, social protection and care work are important for the revival of women’s participation in the labour force, including in the digital sector.

We are grateful for your recognition of the significant role played by UN Women, including through the UN Trust Fund on Violence Against Women and Girls , in responding to the intensification of violence against women and girls. I noted the emphasis, in particular, on virtual spaces and in crisis settings such as in Afghanistan and Ukraine. We share the deep concern expressed by you about reaching the most vulnerable populations in these contexts, including those at the “crossroads” of multiple forms of discrimination.

Distinguished delegates, as we look ahead to the implementation of the new Strategic Plan in the increasingly challenging global context, we will continue to focus on core areas of our work. These include ensuring that women participate meaningfully in peace and security as well as in humanitarian and climate action . As some of you noted, our UN system coordination role is vital in this regard, to amplify the work to support women and girls and make progress towards the achievement of SDG 5 and Agenda 2030 more broadly. I took good note of the several requests for stronger engagement in areas such as climate change, education, and the use of digital technology—both in terms of emerging opportunities and threats.

We appreciated the recognition of UN Women as a “catalyst of systematic change within the UN system”. We take very seriously our role in driving UN reforms, ensuring gender mainstreaming and accountability for gender equality and women’s empowerment across the UN system and assure you all of our continued commitment to do so.

I thank the Board for their continued support to the work and the mandate of UN Women.

I also thank the Secretary of the Executive Board, Jean-Luc Bories, and the entire team of the Executive Board Secretariat . Once again, they have ensured that the proceedings of the Board are seamless and well-coordinated, leading to the positive outcome of this session, including the four decisions.

Also, I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to my Deputies, Åsa and Anita, and all my team who worked hard towards the positive decisions we have seen today.

Distinguished delegates, to conclude, this has been my first annual session. I have found it informative but, more importantly, inspiring, and also very satisfying in terms of the clarity with which we have addressed key issues with a shared focus on action. And we will act.

I will continue to depend on you all to support us. I ask those who can, to maintain or even increase funding support. I ask all of you to be champions for gender equality, alongside us, within the UN, in all multilateral spaces, and in your own countries. And I very much look forward to our ongoing work together.

I thank you.

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Speech: Gender equality – just, prudent, and essential for everything we all aspire to

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator

Contributed equally to this work with: Paola Belingheri, Filippo Chiarello, Andrea Fronzetti Colladon, Paola Rovelli

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Energia, dei Sistemi, del Territorio e delle Costruzioni, Università degli Studi di Pisa, Largo L. Lazzarino, Pisa, Italy

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Software, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy, Department of Management, Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Faculty of Economics and Management, Centre for Family Business Management, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

• Paola Belingheri, 
• Filippo Chiarello, 
• Andrea Fronzetti Colladon, 
• Paola Rovelli

• Published: September 21, 2021
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474
• Reader Comments

9 Nov 2021: The PLOS ONE Staff (2021) Correction: Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator. PLOS ONE 16(11): e0259930. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259930 View correction

Gender equality is a major problem that places women at a disadvantage thereby stymieing economic growth and societal advancement. In the last two decades, extensive research has been conducted on gender related issues, studying both their antecedents and consequences. However, existing literature reviews fail to provide a comprehensive and clear picture of what has been studied so far, which could guide scholars in their future research. Our paper offers a scoping review of a large portion of the research that has been published over the last 22 years, on gender equality and related issues, with a specific focus on business and economics studies. Combining innovative methods drawn from both network analysis and text mining, we provide a synthesis of 15,465 scientific articles. We identify 27 main research topics, we measure their relevance from a semantic point of view and the relationships among them, highlighting the importance of each topic in the overall gender discourse. We find that prominent research topics mostly relate to women in the workforce–e.g., concerning compensation, role, education, decision-making and career progression. However, some of them are losing momentum, and some other research trends–for example related to female entrepreneurship, leadership and participation in the board of directors–are on the rise. Besides introducing a novel methodology to review broad literature streams, our paper offers a map of the main gender-research trends and presents the most popular and the emerging themes, as well as their intersections, outlining important avenues for future research.

Citation: Belingheri P, Chiarello F, Fronzetti Colladon A, Rovelli P (2021) Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicator. PLoS ONE 16(9): e0256474. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474

Editor: Elisa Ughetto, Politecnico di Torino, ITALY

Received: June 25, 2021; Accepted: August 6, 2021; Published: September 21, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Belingheri et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its supporting information files. The only exception is the text of the abstracts (over 15,000) that we have downloaded from Scopus. These abstracts can be retrieved from Scopus, but we do not have permission to redistribute them.

Funding: P.B and F.C.: Grant of the Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction of the University of Pisa (DESTEC) for the project “Measuring Gender Bias with Semantic Analysis: The Development of an Assessment Tool and its Application in the European Space Industry. P.B., F.C., A.F.C., P.R.: Grant of the Italian Association of Management Engineering (AiIG), “Misure di sostegno ai soci giovani AiIG” 2020, for the project “Gender Equality Through Data Intelligence (GEDI)”. F.C.: EU project ASSETs+ Project (Alliance for Strategic Skills addressing Emerging Technologies in Defence) EAC/A03/2018 - Erasmus+ programme, Sector Skills Alliances, Lot 3: Sector Skills Alliance for implementing a new strategic approach (Blueprint) to sectoral cooperation on skills G.A. NUMBER: 612678-EPP-1-2019-1-IT-EPPKA2-SSA-B.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The persistent gender inequalities that currently exist across the developed and developing world are receiving increasing attention from economists, policymakers, and the general public [e.g., 1 – 3 ]. Economic studies have indicated that women’s education and entry into the workforce contributes to social and economic well-being [e.g., 4 , 5 ], while their exclusion from the labor market and from managerial positions has an impact on overall labor productivity and income per capita [ 6 , 7 ]. The United Nations selected gender equality, with an emphasis on female education, as part of the Millennium Development Goals [ 8 ], and gender equality at-large as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 [ 9 ]. These latter objectives involve not only developing nations, but rather all countries, to achieve economic, social and environmental well-being.

As is the case with many SDGs, gender equality is still far from being achieved and persists across education, access to opportunities, or presence in decision-making positions [ 7 , 10 , 11 ]. As we enter the last decade for the SDGs’ implementation, and while we are battling a global health pandemic, effective and efficient action becomes paramount to reach this ambitious goal.

Scholars have dedicated a massive effort towards understanding gender equality, its determinants, its consequences for women and society, and the appropriate actions and policies to advance women’s equality. Many topics have been covered, ranging from women’s education and human capital [ 12 , 13 ] and their role in society [e.g., 14 , 15 ], to their appointment in firms’ top ranked positions [e.g., 16 , 17 ] and performance implications [e.g., 18 , 19 ]. Despite some attempts, extant literature reviews provide a narrow view on these issues, restricted to specific topics–e.g., female students’ presence in STEM fields [ 20 ], educational gender inequality [ 5 ], the gender pay gap [ 21 ], the glass ceiling effect [ 22 ], leadership [ 23 ], entrepreneurship [ 24 ], women’s presence on the board of directors [ 25 , 26 ], diversity management [ 27 ], gender stereotypes in advertisement [ 28 ], or specific professions [ 29 ]. A comprehensive view on gender-related research, taking stock of key findings and under-studied topics is thus lacking.

Extant literature has also highlighted that gender issues, and their economic and social ramifications, are complex topics that involve a large number of possible antecedents and outcomes [ 7 ]. Indeed, gender equality actions are most effective when implemented in unison with other SDGs (e.g., with SDG 8, see [ 30 ]) in a synergetic perspective [ 10 ]. Many bodies of literature (e.g., business, economics, development studies, sociology and psychology) approach the problem of achieving gender equality from different perspectives–often addressing specific and narrow aspects. This sometimes leads to a lack of clarity about how different issues, circumstances, and solutions may be related in precipitating or mitigating gender inequality or its effects. As the number of papers grows at an increasing pace, this issue is exacerbated and there is a need to step back and survey the body of gender equality literature as a whole. There is also a need to examine synergies between different topics and approaches, as well as gaps in our understanding of how different problems and solutions work together. Considering the important topic of women’s economic and social empowerment, this paper aims to fill this gap by answering the following research question: what are the most relevant findings in the literature on gender equality and how do they relate to each other ?

To do so, we conduct a scoping review [ 31 ], providing a synthesis of 15,465 articles dealing with gender equity related issues published in the last twenty-two years, covering both the periods of the MDGs and the SDGs (i.e., 2000 to mid 2021) in all the journals indexed in the Academic Journal Guide’s 2018 ranking of business and economics journals. Given the huge amount of research conducted on the topic, we adopt an innovative methodology, which relies on social network analysis and text mining. These techniques are increasingly adopted when surveying large bodies of text. Recently, they were applied to perform analysis of online gender communication differences [ 32 ] and gender behaviors in online technology communities [ 33 ], to identify and classify sexual harassment instances in academia [ 34 ], and to evaluate the gender inclusivity of disaster management policies [ 35 ].

Applied to the title, abstracts and keywords of the articles in our sample, this methodology allows us to identify a set of 27 recurrent topics within which we automatically classify the papers. Introducing additional novelty, by means of the Semantic Brand Score (SBS) indicator [ 36 ] and the SBS BI app [ 37 ], we assess the importance of each topic in the overall gender equality discourse and its relationships with the other topics, as well as trends over time, with a more accurate description than that offered by traditional literature reviews relying solely on the number of papers presented in each topic.

This methodology, applied to gender equality research spanning the past twenty-two years, enables two key contributions. First, we extract the main message that each document is conveying and how this is connected to other themes in literature, providing a rich picture of the topics that are at the center of the discourse, as well as of the emerging topics. Second, by examining the semantic relationship between topics and how tightly their discourses are linked, we can identify the key relationships and connections between different topics. This semi-automatic methodology is also highly reproducible with minimum effort.

This literature review is organized as follows. In the next section, we present how we selected relevant papers and how we analyzed them through text mining and social network analysis. We then illustrate the importance of 27 selected research topics, measured by means of the SBS indicator. In the results section, we present an overview of the literature based on the SBS results–followed by an in-depth narrative analysis of the top 10 topics (i.e., those with the highest SBS) and their connections. Subsequently, we highlight a series of under-studied connections between the topics where there is potential for future research. Through this analysis, we build a map of the main gender-research trends in the last twenty-two years–presenting the most popular themes. We conclude by highlighting key areas on which research should focused in the future.

Our aim is to map a broad topic, gender equality research, that has been approached through a host of different angles and through different disciplines. Scoping reviews are the most appropriate as they provide the freedom to map different themes and identify literature gaps, thereby guiding the recommendation of new research agendas [ 38 ].

Several practical approaches have been proposed to identify and assess the underlying topics of a specific field using big data [ 39 – 41 ], but many of them fail without proper paper retrieval and text preprocessing. This is specifically true for a research field such as the gender-related one, which comprises the work of scholars from different backgrounds. In this section, we illustrate a novel approach for the analysis of scientific (gender-related) papers that relies on methods and tools of social network analysis and text mining. Our procedure has four main steps: (1) data collection, (2) text preprocessing, (3) keywords extraction and classification, and (4) evaluation of semantic importance and image.

Data collection

In this study, we analyze 22 years of literature on gender-related research. Following established practice for scoping reviews [ 42 ], our data collection consisted of two main steps, which we summarize here below.

Firstly, we retrieved from the Scopus database all the articles written in English that contained the term “gender” in their title, abstract or keywords and were published in a journal listed in the Academic Journal Guide 2018 ranking of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) ( https://charteredabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/AJG2018-Methodology.pdf ), considering the time period from Jan 2000 to May 2021. We used this information considering that abstracts, titles and keywords represent the most informative part of a paper, while using the full-text would increase the signal-to-noise ratio for information extraction. Indeed, these textual elements already demonstrated to be reliable sources of information for the task of domain lexicon extraction [ 43 , 44 ]. We chose Scopus as source of literature because of its popularity, its update rate, and because it offers an API to ease the querying process. Indeed, while it does not allow to retrieve the full text of scientific articles, the Scopus API offers access to titles, abstracts, citation information and metadata for all its indexed scholarly journals. Moreover, we decided to focus on the journals listed in the AJG 2018 ranking because we were interested in reviewing business and economics related gender studies only. The AJG is indeed widely used by universities and business schools as a reference point for journal and research rigor and quality. This first step, executed in June 2021, returned more than 55,000 papers.

In the second step–because a look at the papers showed very sparse results, many of which were not in line with the topic of this literature review (e.g., papers dealing with health care or medical issues, where the word gender indicates the gender of the patients)–we applied further inclusion criteria to make the sample more focused on the topic of this literature review (i.e., women’s gender equality issues). Specifically, we only retained those papers mentioning, in their title and/or abstract, both gender-related keywords (e.g., daughter, female, mother) and keywords referring to bias and equality issues (e.g., equality, bias, diversity, inclusion). After text pre-processing (see next section), keywords were first identified from a frequency-weighted list of words found in the titles, abstracts and keywords in the initial list of papers, extracted through text mining (following the same approach as [ 43 ]). They were selected by two of the co-authors independently, following respectively a bottom up and a top-down approach. The bottom-up approach consisted of examining the words found in the frequency-weighted list and classifying those related to gender and equality. The top-down approach consisted in searching in the word list for notable gender and equality-related words. Table 1 reports the sets of keywords we considered, together with some examples of words that were used to search for their presence in the dataset (a full list is provided in the S1 Text ). At end of this second step, we obtained a final sample of 15,465 relevant papers.

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Text processing and keyword extraction

Text preprocessing aims at structuring text into a form that can be analyzed by statistical models. In the present section, we describe the preprocessing steps we applied to paper titles and abstracts, which, as explained below, partially follow a standard text preprocessing pipeline [ 45 ]. These activities have been performed using the R package udpipe [ 46 ].

The first step is n-gram extraction (i.e., a sequence of words from a given text sample) to identify which n-grams are important in the analysis, since domain-specific lexicons are often composed by bi-grams and tri-grams [ 47 ]. Multi-word extraction is usually implemented with statistics and linguistic rules, thus using the statistical properties of n-grams or machine learning approaches [ 48 ]. However, for the present paper, we used Scopus metadata in order to have a more effective and efficient n-grams collection approach [ 49 ]. We used the keywords of each paper in order to tag n-grams with their associated keywords automatically. Using this greedy approach, it was possible to collect all the keywords listed by the authors of the papers. From this list, we extracted only keywords composed by two, three and four words, we removed all the acronyms and rare keywords (i.e., appearing in less than 1% of papers), and we clustered keywords showing a high orthographic similarity–measured using a Levenshtein distance [ 50 ] lower than 2, considering these groups of keywords as representing same concepts, but expressed with different spelling. After tagging the n-grams in the abstracts, we followed a common data preparation pipeline that consists of the following steps: (i) tokenization, that splits the text into tokens (i.e., single words and previously tagged multi-words); (ii) removal of stop-words (i.e. those words that add little meaning to the text, usually being very common and short functional words–such as “and”, “or”, or “of”); (iii) parts-of-speech tagging, that is providing information concerning the morphological role of a word and its morphosyntactic context (e.g., if the token is a determiner, the next token is a noun or an adjective with very high confidence, [ 51 ]); and (iv) lemmatization, which consists in substituting each word with its dictionary form (or lemma). The output of the latter step allows grouping together the inflected forms of a word. For example, the verbs “am”, “are”, and “is” have the shared lemma “be”, or the nouns “cat” and “cats” both share the lemma “cat”. We preferred lemmatization over stemming [ 52 ] in order to obtain more interpretable results.

In addition, we identified a further set of keywords (with respect to those listed in the “keywords” field) by applying a series of automatic words unification and removal steps, as suggested in past research [ 53 , 54 ]. We removed: sparse terms (i.e., occurring in less than 0.1% of all documents), common terms (i.e., occurring in more than 10% of all documents) and retained only nouns and adjectives. It is relevant to notice that no document was lost due to these steps. We then used the TF-IDF function [ 55 ] to produce a new list of keywords. We additionally tested other approaches for the identification and clustering of keywords–such as TextRank [ 56 ] or Latent Dirichlet Allocation [ 57 ]–without obtaining more informative results.

Classification of research topics

To guide the literature analysis, two experts met regularly to examine the sample of collected papers and to identify the main topics and trends in gender research. Initially, they conducted brainstorming sessions on the topics they expected to find, due to their knowledge of the literature. This led to an initial list of topics. Subsequently, the experts worked independently, also supported by the keywords in paper titles and abstracts extracted with the procedure described above.

Considering all this information, each expert identified and clustered relevant keywords into topics. At the end of the process, the two assignments were compared and exhibited a 92% agreement. Another meeting was held to discuss discordant cases and reach a consensus. This resulted in a list of 27 topics, briefly introduced in Table 2 and subsequently detailed in the following sections.

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Evaluation of semantic importance

Working on the lemmatized corpus of the 15,465 papers included in our sample, we proceeded with the evaluation of semantic importance trends for each topic and with the analysis of their connections and prevalent textual associations. To this aim, we used the Semantic Brand Score indicator [ 36 ], calculated through the SBS BI webapp [ 37 ] that also produced a brand image report for each topic. For this study we relied on the computing resources of the ENEA/CRESCO infrastructure [ 58 ].

The Semantic Brand Score (SBS) is a measure of semantic importance that combines methods of social network analysis and text mining. It is usually applied for the analysis of (big) textual data to evaluate the importance of one or more brands, names, words, or sets of keywords [ 36 ]. Indeed, the concept of “brand” is intended in a flexible way and goes beyond products or commercial brands. In this study, we evaluate the SBS time-trends of the keywords defining the research topics discussed in the previous section. Semantic importance comprises the three dimensions of topic prevalence, diversity and connectivity. Prevalence measures how frequently a research topic is used in the discourse. The more a topic is mentioned by scientific articles, the more the research community will be aware of it, with possible increase of future studies; this construct is partly related to that of brand awareness [ 59 ]. This effect is even stronger, considering that we are analyzing the title, abstract and keywords of the papers, i.e. the parts that have the highest visibility. A very important characteristic of the SBS is that it considers the relationships among words in a text. Topic importance is not just a matter of how frequently a topic is mentioned, but also of the associations a topic has in the text. Specifically, texts are transformed into networks of co-occurring words, and relationships are studied through social network analysis [ 60 ]. This step is necessary to calculate the other two dimensions of our semantic importance indicator. Accordingly, a social network of words is generated for each time period considered in the analysis–i.e., a graph made of n nodes (words) and E edges weighted by co-occurrence frequency, with W being the set of edge weights. The keywords representing each topic were clustered into single nodes.

The construct of diversity relates to that of brand image [ 59 ], in the sense that it considers the richness and distinctiveness of textual (topic) associations. Considering the above-mentioned networks, we calculated diversity using the distinctiveness centrality metric–as in the formula presented by Fronzetti Colladon and Naldi [ 61 ].

Lastly, connectivity was measured as the weighted betweenness centrality [ 62 , 63 ] of each research topic node. We used the formula presented by Wasserman and Faust [ 60 ]. The dimension of connectivity represents the “brokerage power” of each research topic–i.e., how much it can serve as a bridge to connect other terms (and ultimately topics) in the discourse [ 36 ].

The SBS is the final composite indicator obtained by summing the standardized scores of prevalence, diversity and connectivity. Standardization was carried out considering all the words in the corpus, for each specific timeframe.

This methodology, applied to a large and heterogeneous body of text, enables to automatically identify two important sets of information that add value to the literature review. Firstly, the relevance of each topic in literature is measured through a composite indicator of semantic importance, rather than simply looking at word frequencies. This provides a much richer picture of the topics that are at the center of the discourse, as well as of the topics that are emerging in the literature. Secondly, it enables to examine the extent of the semantic relationship between topics, looking at how tightly their discourses are linked. In a field such as gender equality, where many topics are closely linked to each other and present overlaps in issues and solutions, this methodology offers a novel perspective with respect to traditional literature reviews. In addition, it ensures reproducibility over time and the possibility to semi-automatically update the analysis, as new papers become available.

Overview of main topics

In terms of descriptive textual statistics, our corpus is made of 15,465 text documents, consisting of a total of 2,685,893 lemmatized tokens (words) and 32,279 types. As a result, the type-token ratio is 1.2%. The number of hapaxes is 12,141, with a hapax-token ratio of 37.61%.

Fig 1 shows the list of 27 topics by decreasing SBS. The most researched topic is compensation , exceeding all others in prevalence, diversity, and connectivity. This means it is not only mentioned more often than other topics, but it is also connected to a greater number of other topics and is central to the discourse on gender equality. The next four topics are, in order of SBS, role , education , decision-making , and career progression . These topics, except for education , all concern women in the workforce. Between these first five topics and the following ones there is a clear drop in SBS scores. In particular, the topics that follow have a lower connectivity than the first five. They are hiring , performance , behavior , organization , and human capital . Again, except for behavior and human capital , the other three topics are purely related to women in the workforce. After another drop-off, the following topics deal prevalently with women in society. This trend highlights that research on gender in business journals has so far mainly paid attention to the conditions that women experience in business contexts, while also devoting some attention to women in society.

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Fig 2 shows the SBS time series of the top 10 topics. While there has been a general increase in the number of Scopus-indexed publications in the last decade, we notice that some SBS trends remain steady, or even decrease. In particular, we observe that the main topic of the last twenty-two years, compensation , is losing momentum. Since 2016, it has been surpassed by decision-making , education and role , which may indicate that literature is increasingly attempting to identify root causes of compensation inequalities. Moreover, in the last two years, the topics of hiring , performance , and organization are experiencing the largest importance increase.

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Fig 3 shows the SBS time trends of the remaining 17 topics (i.e., those not in the top 10). As we can see from the graph, there are some that maintain a steady trend–such as reputation , management , networks and governance , which also seem to have little importance. More relevant topics with average stationary trends (except for the last two years) are culture , family , and parenting . The feminine topic is among the most important here, and one of those that exhibit the larger variations over time (similarly to leadership ). On the other hand, the are some topics that, even if not among the most important, show increasing SBS trends; therefore, they could be considered as emerging topics and could become popular in the near future. These are entrepreneurship , leadership , board of directors , and sustainability . These emerging topics are also interesting to anticipate future trends in gender equality research that are conducive to overall equality in society.

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In addition to the SBS score of the different topics, the network of terms they are associated to enables to gauge the extent to which their images (textual associations) overlap or differ ( Fig 4 ).

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There is a central cluster of topics with high similarity, which are all connected with women in the workforce. The cluster includes topics such as organization , decision-making , performance , hiring , human capital , education and compensation . In addition, the topic of well-being is found within this cluster, suggesting that women’s equality in the workforce is associated to well-being considerations. The emerging topics of entrepreneurship and leadership are also closely connected with each other, possibly implying that leadership is a much-researched quality in female entrepreneurship. Topics that are relatively more distant include personality , politics , feminine , empowerment , management , board of directors , reputation , governance , parenting , masculine and network .

The following sections describe the top 10 topics and their main associations in literature (see Table 3 ), while providing a brief overview of the emerging topics.

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Compensation.

The topic of compensation is related to the topics of role , hiring , education and career progression , however, also sees a very high association with the words gap and inequality . Indeed, a well-known debate in degrowth economics centers around whether and how to adequately compensate women for their childbearing, childrearing, caregiver and household work [e.g., 30 ].

Even in paid work, women continue being offered lower compensations than their male counterparts who have the same job or cover the same role [ 64 – 67 ]. This severe inequality has been widely studied by scholars over the last twenty-two years. Dealing with this topic, some specific roles have been addressed. Specifically, research highlighted differences in compensation between female and male CEOs [e.g., 68 ], top executives [e.g., 69 ], and boards’ directors [e.g., 70 ]. Scholars investigated the determinants of these gaps, such as the gender composition of the board [e.g., 71 – 73 ] or women’s individual characteristics [e.g., 71 , 74 ].

Among these individual characteristics, education plays a relevant role [ 75 ]. Education is indeed presented as the solution for women, not only to achieve top executive roles, but also to reduce wage inequality [e.g., 76 , 77 ]. Past research has highlighted education influences on gender wage gaps, specifically referring to gender differences in skills [e.g., 78 ], college majors [e.g., 79 ], and college selectivity [e.g., 80 ].

Finally, the wage gap issue is strictly interrelated with hiring –e.g., looking at whether being a mother affects hiring and compensation [e.g., 65 , 81 ] or relating compensation to unemployment [e.g., 82 ]–and career progression –for instance looking at meritocracy [ 83 , 84 ] or the characteristics of the boss for whom women work [e.g., 85 ].

The roles covered by women have been deeply investigated. Scholars have focused on the role of women in their families and the society as a whole [e.g., 14 , 15 ], and, more widely, in business contexts [e.g., 18 , 81 ]. Indeed, despite still lagging behind their male counterparts [e.g., 86 , 87 ], in the last decade there has been an increase in top ranked positions achieved by women [e.g., 88 , 89 ]. Following this phenomenon, scholars have posed greater attention towards the presence of women in the board of directors [e.g., 16 , 18 , 90 , 91 ], given the increasing pressure to appoint female directors that firms, especially listed ones, have experienced. Other scholars have focused on the presence of women covering the role of CEO [e.g., 17 , 92 ] or being part of the top management team [e.g., 93 ]. Irrespectively of the level of analysis, all these studies tried to uncover the antecedents of women’s presence among top managers [e.g., 92 , 94 ] and the consequences of having a them involved in the firm’s decision-making –e.g., on performance [e.g., 19 , 95 , 96 ], risk [e.g., 97 , 98 ], and corporate social responsibility [e.g., 99 , 100 ].

Besides studying the difficulties and discriminations faced by women in getting a job [ 81 , 101 ], and, more specifically in the hiring , appointment, or career progression to these apical roles [e.g., 70 , 83 ], the majority of research of women’s roles dealt with compensation issues. Specifically, scholars highlight the pay-gap that still exists between women and men, both in general [e.g., 64 , 65 ], as well as referring to boards’ directors [e.g., 70 , 102 ], CEOs and executives [e.g., 69 , 103 , 104 ].

Finally, other scholars focused on the behavior of women when dealing with business. In this sense, particular attention has been paid to leadership and entrepreneurial behaviors. The former quite overlaps with dealing with the roles mentioned above, but also includes aspects such as leaders being stereotyped as masculine [e.g., 105 ], the need for greater exposure to female leaders to reduce biases [e.g., 106 ], or female leaders acting as queen bees [e.g., 107 ]. Regarding entrepreneurship , scholars mainly investigated women’s entrepreneurial entry [e.g., 108 , 109 ], differences between female and male entrepreneurs in the evaluations and funding received from investors [e.g., 110 , 111 ], and their performance gap [e.g., 112 , 113 ].

Education has long been recognized as key to social advancement and economic stability [ 114 ], for job progression and also a barrier to gender equality, especially in STEM-related fields. Research on education and gender equality is mostly linked with the topics of compensation , human capital , career progression , hiring , parenting and decision-making .

Education contributes to a higher human capital [ 115 ] and constitutes an investment on the part of women towards their future. In this context, literature points to the gender gap in educational attainment, and the consequences for women from a social, economic, personal and professional standpoint. Women are found to have less access to formal education and information, especially in emerging countries, which in turn may cause them to lose social and economic opportunities [e.g., 12 , 116 – 119 ]. Education in local and rural communities is also paramount to communicate the benefits of female empowerment , contributing to overall societal well-being [e.g., 120 ].

Once women access education, the image they have of the world and their place in society (i.e., habitus) affects their education performance [ 13 ] and is passed on to their children. These situations reinforce gender stereotypes, which become self-fulfilling prophecies that may negatively affect female students’ performance by lowering their confidence and heightening their anxiety [ 121 , 122 ]. Besides formal education, also the information that women are exposed to on a daily basis contributes to their human capital . Digital inequalities, for instance, stems from men spending more time online and acquiring higher digital skills than women [ 123 ].

Education is also a factor that should boost employability of candidates and thus hiring , career progression and compensation , however the relationship between these factors is not straightforward [ 115 ]. First, educational choices ( decision-making ) are influenced by variables such as self-efficacy and the presence of barriers, irrespectively of the career opportunities they offer, especially in STEM [ 124 ]. This brings additional difficulties to women’s enrollment and persistence in scientific and technical fields of study due to stereotypes and biases [ 125 , 126 ]. Moreover, access to education does not automatically translate into job opportunities for women and minority groups [ 127 , 128 ] or into female access to managerial positions [ 129 ].

Finally, parenting is reported as an antecedent of education [e.g., 130 ], with much of the literature focusing on the role of parents’ education on the opportunities afforded to children to enroll in education [ 131 – 134 ] and the role of parenting in their offspring’s perception of study fields and attitudes towards learning [ 135 – 138 ]. Parental education is also a predictor of the other related topics, namely human capital and compensation [ 139 ].

Decision-making.

This literature mainly points to the fact that women are thought to make decisions differently than men. Women have indeed different priorities, such as they care more about people’s well-being, working with people or helping others, rather than maximizing their personal (or their firm’s) gain [ 140 ]. In other words, women typically present more communal than agentic behaviors, which are instead more frequent among men [ 141 ]. These different attitude, behavior and preferences in turn affect the decisions they make [e.g., 142 ] and the decision-making of the firm in which they work [e.g., 143 ].

At the individual level, gender affects, for instance, career aspirations [e.g., 144 ] and choices [e.g., 142 , 145 ], or the decision of creating a venture [e.g., 108 , 109 , 146 ]. Moreover, in everyday life, women and men make different decisions regarding partners [e.g., 147 ], childcare [e.g., 148 ], education [e.g., 149 ], attention to the environment [e.g., 150 ] and politics [e.g., 151 ].

At the firm level, scholars highlighted, for example, how the presence of women in the board affects corporate decisions [e.g., 152 , 153 ], that female CEOs are more conservative in accounting decisions [e.g., 154 ], or that female CFOs tend to make more conservative decisions regarding the firm’s financial reporting [e.g., 155 ]. Nevertheless, firm level research also investigated decisions that, influenced by gender bias, affect women, such as those pertaining hiring [e.g., 156 , 157 ], compensation [e.g., 73 , 158 ], or the empowerment of women once appointed [ 159 ].

Career progression.

Once women have entered the workforce, the key aspect to achieve gender equality becomes career progression , including efforts toward overcoming the glass ceiling. Indeed, according to the SBS analysis, career progression is highly related to words such as work, social issues and equality. The topic with which it has the highest semantic overlap is role , followed by decision-making , hiring , education , compensation , leadership , human capital , and family .

Career progression implies an advancement in the hierarchical ladder of the firm, assigning managerial roles to women. Coherently, much of the literature has focused on identifying rationales for a greater female participation in the top management team and board of directors [e.g., 95 ] as well as the best criteria to ensure that the decision-makers promote the most valuable employees irrespectively of their individual characteristics, such as gender [e.g., 84 ]. The link between career progression , role and compensation is often provided in practice by performance appraisal exercises, frequently rooted in a culture of meritocracy that guides bonuses, salary increases and promotions. However, performance appraisals can actually mask gender-biased decisions where women are held to higher standards than their male colleagues [e.g., 83 , 84 , 95 , 160 , 161 ]. Women often have less opportunities to gain leadership experience and are less visible than their male colleagues, which constitute barriers to career advancement [e.g., 162 ]. Therefore, transparency and accountability, together with procedures that discourage discretionary choices, are paramount to achieve a fair career progression [e.g., 84 ], together with the relaxation of strict job boundaries in favor of cross-functional and self-directed tasks [e.g., 163 ].

In addition, a series of stereotypes about the type of leadership characteristics that are required for top management positions, which fit better with typical male and agentic attributes, are another key barrier to career advancement for women [e.g., 92 , 160 ].

Hiring is the entrance gateway for women into the workforce. Therefore, it is related to other workforce topics such as compensation , role , career progression , decision-making , human capital , performance , organization and education .

A first stream of literature focuses on the process leading up to candidates’ job applications, demonstrating that bias exists before positions are even opened, and it is perpetuated both by men and women through networking and gatekeeping practices [e.g., 164 , 165 ].

The hiring process itself is also subject to biases [ 166 ], for example gender-congruity bias that leads to men being preferred candidates in male-dominated sectors [e.g., 167 ], women being hired in positions with higher risk of failure [e.g., 168 ] and limited transparency and accountability afforded by written processes and procedures [e.g., 164 ] that all contribute to ascriptive inequality. In addition, providing incentives for evaluators to hire women may actually work to this end; however, this is not the case when supporting female candidates endangers higher-ranking male ones [ 169 ].

Another interesting perspective, instead, looks at top management teams’ composition and the effects on hiring practices, indicating that firms with more women in top management are less likely to lay off staff [e.g., 152 ].

Performance.

Several scholars posed their attention towards women’s performance, its consequences [e.g., 170 , 171 ] and the implications of having women in decision-making positions [e.g., 18 , 19 ].

At the individual level, research focused on differences in educational and academic performance between women and men, especially referring to the gender gap in STEM fields [e.g., 171 ]. The presence of stereotype threats–that is the expectation that the members of a social group (e.g., women) “must deal with the possibility of being judged or treated stereotypically, or of doing something that would confirm the stereotype” [ 172 ]–affects women’s interested in STEM [e.g., 173 ], as well as their cognitive ability tests, penalizing them [e.g., 174 ]. A stronger gender identification enhances this gap [e.g., 175 ], whereas mentoring and role models can be used as solutions to this problem [e.g., 121 ]. Despite the negative effect of stereotype threats on girls’ performance [ 176 ], female and male students perform equally in mathematics and related subjects [e.g., 177 ]. Moreover, while individuals’ performance at school and university generally affects their achievements and the field in which they end up working, evidence reveals that performance in math or other scientific subjects does not explain why fewer women enter STEM working fields; rather this gap depends on other aspects, such as culture, past working experiences, or self-efficacy [e.g., 170 ]. Finally, scholars have highlighted the penalization that women face for their positive performance, for instance when they succeed in traditionally male areas [e.g., 178 ]. This penalization is explained by the violation of gender-stereotypic prescriptions [e.g., 179 , 180 ], that is having women well performing in agentic areas, which are typical associated to men. Performance penalization can thus be overcome by clearly conveying communal characteristics and behaviors [ 178 ].

Evidence has been provided on how the involvement of women in boards of directors and decision-making positions affects firms’ performance. Nevertheless, results are mixed, with some studies showing positive effects on financial [ 19 , 181 , 182 ] and corporate social performance [ 99 , 182 , 183 ]. Other studies maintain a negative association [e.g., 18 ], and other again mixed [e.g., 184 ] or non-significant association [e.g., 185 ]. Also with respect to the presence of a female CEO, mixed results emerged so far, with some researches demonstrating a positive effect on firm’s performance [e.g., 96 , 186 ], while other obtaining only a limited evidence of this relationship [e.g., 103 ] or a negative one [e.g., 187 ].

Finally, some studies have investigated whether and how women’s performance affects their hiring [e.g., 101 ] and career progression [e.g., 83 , 160 ]. For instance, academic performance leads to different returns in hiring for women and men. Specifically, high-achieving men are called back significantly more often than high-achieving women, which are penalized when they have a major in mathematics; this result depends on employers’ gendered standards for applicants [e.g., 101 ]. Once appointed, performance ratings are more strongly related to promotions for women than men, and promoted women typically show higher past performance ratings than those of promoted men. This suggesting that women are subject to stricter standards for promotion [e.g., 160 ].

Behavioral aspects related to gender follow two main streams of literature. The first examines female personality and behavior in the workplace, and their alignment with cultural expectations or stereotypes [e.g., 188 ] as well as their impacts on equality. There is a common bias that depicts women as less agentic than males. Certain characteristics, such as those more congruent with male behaviors–e.g., self-promotion [e.g., 189 ], negotiation skills [e.g., 190 ] and general agentic behavior [e.g., 191 ]–, are less accepted in women. However, characteristics such as individualism in women have been found to promote greater gender equality in society [ 192 ]. In addition, behaviors such as display of emotions [e.g., 193 ], which are stereotypically female, work against women’s acceptance in the workplace, requiring women to carefully moderate their behavior to avoid exclusion. A counter-intuitive result is that women and minorities, which are more marginalized in the workplace, tend to be better problem-solvers in innovation competitions due to their different knowledge bases [ 194 ].

The other side of the coin is examined in a parallel literature stream on behavior towards women in the workplace. As a result of biases, prejudices and stereotypes, women may experience adverse behavior from their colleagues, such as incivility and harassment, which undermine their well-being [e.g., 195 , 196 ]. Biases that go beyond gender, such as for overweight people, are also more strongly applied to women [ 197 ].

Organization.

The role of women and gender bias in organizations has been studied from different perspectives, which mirror those presented in detail in the following sections. Specifically, most research highlighted the stereotypical view of leaders [e.g., 105 ] and the roles played by women within firms, for instance referring to presence in the board of directors [e.g., 18 , 90 , 91 ], appointment as CEOs [e.g., 16 ], or top executives [e.g., 93 ].

Scholars have investigated antecedents and consequences of the presence of women in these apical roles. On the one side they looked at hiring and career progression [e.g., 83 , 92 , 160 , 168 , 198 ], finding women typically disadvantaged with respect to their male counterparts. On the other side, they studied women’s leadership styles and influence on the firm’s decision-making [e.g., 152 , 154 , 155 , 199 ], with implications for performance [e.g., 18 , 19 , 96 ].

Human capital.

Human capital is a transverse topic that touches upon many different aspects of female gender equality. As such, it has the most associations with other topics, starting with education as mentioned above, with career-related topics such as role , decision-making , hiring , career progression , performance , compensation , leadership and organization . Another topic with which there is a close connection is behavior . In general, human capital is approached both from the education standpoint but also from the perspective of social capital.

The behavioral aspect in human capital comprises research related to gender differences for example in cultural and religious beliefs that influence women’s attitudes and perceptions towards STEM subjects [ 142 , 200 – 202 ], towards employment [ 203 ] or towards environmental issues [ 150 , 204 ]. These cultural differences also emerge in the context of globalization which may accelerate gender equality in the workforce [ 205 , 206 ]. Gender differences also appear in behaviors such as motivation [ 207 ], and in negotiation [ 190 ], and have repercussions on women’s decision-making related to their careers. The so-called gender equality paradox sees women in countries with lower gender equality more likely to pursue studies and careers in STEM fields, whereas the gap in STEM enrollment widens as countries achieve greater equality in society [ 171 ].

Career progression is modeled by literature as a choice-process where personal preferences, culture and decision-making affect the chosen path and the outcomes. Some literature highlights how women tend to self-select into different professions than men, often due to stereotypes rather than actual ability to perform in these professions [ 142 , 144 ]. These stereotypes also affect the perceptions of female performance or the amount of human capital required to equal male performance [ 110 , 193 , 208 ], particularly for mothers [ 81 ]. It is therefore often assumed that women are better suited to less visible and less leadership -oriented roles [ 209 ]. Women also express differing preferences towards work-family balance, which affect whether and how they pursue human capital gains [ 210 ], and ultimately their career progression and salary .

On the other hand, men are often unaware of gendered processes and behaviors that they carry forward in their interactions and decision-making [ 211 , 212 ]. Therefore, initiatives aimed at increasing managers’ human capital –by raising awareness of gender disparities in their organizations and engaging them in diversity promotion–are essential steps to counter gender bias and segregation [ 213 ].

Emerging topics: Leadership and entrepreneurship

Among the emerging topics, the most pervasive one is women reaching leadership positions in the workforce and in society. This is still a rare occurrence for two main types of factors, on the one hand, bias and discrimination make it harder for women to access leadership positions [e.g., 214 – 216 ], on the other hand, the competitive nature and high pressure associated with leadership positions, coupled with the lack of women currently represented, reduce women’s desire to achieve them [e.g., 209 , 217 ]. Women are more effective leaders when they have access to education, resources and a diverse environment with representation [e.g., 218 , 219 ].

One sector where there is potential for women to carve out a leadership role is entrepreneurship . Although at the start of the millennium the discourse on entrepreneurship was found to be “discriminatory, gender-biased, ethnocentrically determined and ideologically controlled” [ 220 ], an increasing body of literature is studying how to stimulate female entrepreneurship as an alternative pathway to wealth, leadership and empowerment [e.g., 221 ]. Many barriers exist for women to access entrepreneurship, including the institutional and legal environment, social and cultural factors, access to knowledge and resources, and individual behavior [e.g., 222 , 223 ]. Education has been found to raise women’s entrepreneurial intentions [e.g., 224 ], although this effect is smaller than for men [e.g., 109 ]. In addition, increasing self-efficacy and risk-taking behavior constitute important success factors [e.g., 225 ].

Finally, the topic of sustainability is worth mentioning, as it is the primary objective of the SDGs and is closely associated with societal well-being. As society grapples with the effects of climate change and increasing depletion of natural resources, a narrative has emerged on women and their greater link to the environment [ 226 ]. Studies in developed countries have found some support for women leaders’ attention to sustainability issues in firms [e.g., 227 – 229 ], and smaller resource consumption by women [ 230 ]. At the same time, women will likely be more affected by the consequences of climate change [e.g., 230 ] but often lack the decision-making power to influence local decision-making on resource management and environmental policies [e.g., 231 ].

Research gaps and conclusions

Research on gender equality has advanced rapidly in the past decades, with a steady increase in publications, both in mainstream topics related to women in education and the workforce, and in emerging topics. Through a novel approach combining methods of text mining and social network analysis, we examined a comprehensive body of literature comprising 15,465 papers published between 2000 and mid 2021 on topics related to gender equality. We identified a set of 27 topics addressed by the literature and examined their connections.

At the highest level of abstraction, it is worth noting that papers abound on the identification of issues related to gender inequalities and imbalances in the workforce and in society. Literature has thoroughly examined the (unconscious) biases, barriers, stereotypes, and discriminatory behaviors that women are facing as a result of their gender. Instead, there are much fewer papers that discuss or demonstrate effective solutions to overcome gender bias [e.g., 121 , 143 , 145 , 163 , 194 , 213 , 232 ]. This is partly due to the relative ease in studying the status quo, as opposed to studying changes in the status quo. However, we observed a shift in the more recent years towards solution seeking in this domain, which we strongly encourage future researchers to focus on. In the future, we may focus on collecting and mapping pro-active contributions to gender studies, using additional Natural Language Processing techniques, able to measure the sentiment of scientific papers [ 43 ].

All of the mainstream topics identified in our literature review are closely related, and there is a wealth of insights looking at the intersection between issues such as education and career progression or human capital and role . However, emerging topics are worthy of being furtherly explored. It would be interesting to see more work on the topic of female entrepreneurship , exploring aspects such as education , personality , governance , management and leadership . For instance, how can education support female entrepreneurship? How can self-efficacy and risk-taking behaviors be taught or enhanced? What are the differences in managerial and governance styles of female entrepreneurs? Which personality traits are associated with successful entrepreneurs? Which traits are preferred by venture capitalists and funding bodies?

The emerging topic of sustainability also deserves further attention, as our society struggles with climate change and its consequences. It would be interesting to see more research on the intersection between sustainability and entrepreneurship , looking at how female entrepreneurs are tackling sustainability issues, examining both their business models and their company governance . In addition, scholars are suggested to dig deeper into the relationship between family values and behaviors.

Moreover, it would be relevant to understand how women’s networks (social capital), or the composition and structure of social networks involving both women and men, enable them to increase their remuneration and reach top corporate positions, participate in key decision-making bodies, and have a voice in communities. Furthermore, the achievement of gender equality might significantly change firm networks and ecosystems, with important implications for their performance and survival.

Similarly, research at the nexus of (corporate) governance , career progression , compensation and female empowerment could yield useful insights–for example discussing how enterprises, institutions and countries are managed and the impact for women and other minorities. Are there specific governance structures that favor diversity and inclusion?

Lastly, we foresee an emerging stream of research pertaining how the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic challenged women, especially in the workforce, by making gender biases more evident.

For our analysis, we considered a set of 15,465 articles downloaded from the Scopus database (which is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature). As we were interested in reviewing business and economics related gender studies, we only considered those papers published in journals listed in the Academic Journal Guide (AJG) 2018 ranking of the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS). All the journals listed in this ranking are also indexed by Scopus. Therefore, looking at a single database (i.e., Scopus) should not be considered a limitation of our study. However, future research could consider different databases and inclusion criteria.

With our literature review, we offer researchers a comprehensive map of major gender-related research trends over the past twenty-two years. This can serve as a lens to look to the future, contributing to the achievement of SDG5. Researchers may use our study as a starting point to identify key themes addressed in the literature. In addition, our methodological approach–based on the use of the Semantic Brand Score and its webapp–could support scholars interested in reviewing other areas of research.

Supporting information

S1 text. keywords used for paper selection..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256474.s001

Acknowledgments

The computing resources and the related technical support used for this work have been provided by CRESCO/ENEAGRID High Performance Computing infrastructure and its staff. CRESCO/ENEAGRID High Performance Computing infrastructure is funded by ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development and by Italian and European research programmes (see http://www.cresco.enea.it/english for information).

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The benefits of gender diversity are well known – it increases effectiveness and efficiency and strengthens decision-making. Yet, the IMF Executive Board continues to fall short of reaching gender balance, with women constituting a small minority of the Executive Directors and Alternate Executive Directors. There is a clear need for change. The IMFC has called on the membership to take action, including by introducing voluntary medium-term objectives to raise the number of women holding leadership positions at the Board. This report summarizes the Executive Board’s recommendations for these targets and lays out proposals for concerted actions that can be taken by individual countries and constituencies

Gender Diversity in the Executive Board—2024 Report to the Board of Governors

The benefits of gender diversity are well known – it increases effectiveness and efficiency and strengthens decision-making. Yet, the IMF Executive Board continues to fall short of reaching gender balance, with women constituting a small minority of the Executive Directors and Alternate Executive Directors. There is a clear need for change. The IMFC has called on the membership to take action, including by introducing voluntary medium-term objectives to raise the number of women holding leadership positions at the Board. This report summarizes the Executive Board’s recommendations for these targets and lays out proposals for concerted actions that can be taken by individual countries and constituencies .

• A Mandate from the IMFC

1. Following repeated calls from the IMFC to improve the gender diversity profile of the IMF Executive Board, there is a pressing need for action to increase the number of women holding the position of Executive Director or Alternate Executive Director on the Board. The dearth of women at the Executive Board is particularly striking given the IMF’s good progress in strengthening the diversity of its leadership at the level of Managing Director, First Deputy Managing Director, Deputy Managing Director and Department Director.

2. To achieve progress by increasing the number of women at the Board, the Executive Board should move swiftly to take forward the mandate given by the IMFC through the Fall 2023 Chair’s Statement where it called for voluntary objectives to increase the representation of women at the IMF Executive Board.

3. The current share of women holding the position of Executive Director (3 out of 24) and Alternate Executive Director (4 out of 31) on the IMF Executive Board is low. A recent working paper by the Center for Global Development shows that the gender diversity of the IMF Executive Board is also below that of several comparator international financial institutions (IFIs), including the World Bank, OECD, WTO, EBRD, EIB, and AfDB (see Figure 1 ). Some of them have made more progress on improving gender diversity than the IMF, although women are not yet equally represented on their executive boards.

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4. The stronger performance of other IFIs in appointing women to leadership positions suggests that focused commitment to the increased representation of women in senior roles in government and public sector yields results. The Board places high priority on matching the progress made by other comparators institutions.

5. Many member countries have already engaged within their central banks and ministries to work on improving gender diversity. While change takes time, the number of women in leadership positions in G20 central bank bodies responsible for monetary policy indicates strong progress is being made in many countries.

6. It is particularly striking that the Fund continues to lag behind its closest comparator organization, the World Bank. The Bank continues to have more women in these positions, especially at the Alternate Executive Director level. The Bank also continues to demonstrate higher percentages of women appointed to Senior Advisor and Advisor positions, for which voluntary collective employment targets have been established.

Gender Diversity in International Financial Insitutions Boards (percent women)

Citation: Policy Papers 2024, 006; 10.5089/9798400273933.007.A001

G20 Central Banks: Monetary Policy Decision Making Bodies (percent women)

• Proposal for Collective Voluntary Objectives

7. The Executive Board is taking forward the direction provided by the IMFC to define collective voluntary objectives for increasing the number of women Executive Directors and Alternate Executive Directors on the Board and to advocate for their achievement. When developing the proposed objectives, due consideration has been given to different processes among member countries and constituencies for appointing Executive Directors and Alternate Executive Directors.

8. The Executive Board agrees that voluntary collective objectives should be ambitious yet realistic. Given the low number of women represented at the Board throughout the Fund’s history and the slow progress made in recent years, an ambitious objective is important to signal the critical need to make progress. The different selection processes for Executive Director and Alternate Executive Director in each country or constituency will, however, require bespoke methods for achieving the objectives .

9. The Executive Board has agreed to establish collective voluntary medium-term objectives for the appointment of women as Executive Director and Alternate Executive Director combined of at least 30–40 percent over three election cycles, starting with the 2024 regular election of Executive Directors. This is a concrete first step towards the aspiration to reach parity.

10. A combined target of 30–40 percent women as Executive Director or Alternate Executive Director would imply 16–22 women in these positions. Currently, the Board comprises 7 women in these positions. A strong push will be required.

11. Given the turnover of Board members, which also takes place outside of the regular election cycles, it is inevitable that the share of women at Executive Director and/or Alternate Executive Director will vary from year to year, even month to month. Of the 24 Offices of Executive Directors, six have never had a woman appointed in the position of Executive Director or Alternate Executive Director. It is encouraging that one of these constituencies has advised its commitment to elect its first women Executive Director in the next rotation. Recently one constituency has selected a woman to serve as its next Alternate Executive Director, which will increase the number of women at the Board in the position of Executive Director or Alternate Executive Director to 8 women, or 15 percent. These are very positive developments. The aim with the voluntary objective is to ensure a steady and sustainable upward trend in the representation of women in leadership positions at the Board.

Offices of Executive Directors History of Women’s Employment: Executive Directors and Alternate Executive Directors (number of women)

• Actions to Help Move the Needle

12. Gender diversity objectives can be helpful to maintain progress, but they need to go hand in hand with intentional action, including during merit-based recruitment and appointment processes, to be effective. While a lack of pipeline can be an issue to differing extent in different countries, there is also evidence that setting targets can be effective in reducing gender biases in merit-based appointments, generating different outcomes in recruitment from the same talent pool.

13. Building on the different experiences of countries’ and constituencies’ selection processes, the Executive Board will work with authorities to leverage an array of ways to gain the support of decision-makers in reaching the objectives, including:

Outreach . Recognizing the importance of up-to-date and easy-to-digest information and data, the Executive Board will continue to provide updated statistics – most notably the factsheet “Gender Diversity in the IMF Executive Board” -with country authorities ahead of the IMF Spring and Annual Meetings. Other options for Executive Board members to conduct outreach include: leveraging IMF management’s stature and visibility and access to key-decision makers, including through written communication to Governors; as well as written communication from Executive Directors/Alternate Executive Directors to their constituencies.

Gender champions . Executive Directors and other Board members play a key role in raising awareness with their authorities, advocating for change, and acting as champions for gender diversity. Continuous communication, including during missions, on the need to improve the IMF Executive Board gender diversity will be helpful. Raising the issue at the highest level will also be important to ensure that the information reaches those with direct influence over appointments to the Board, which varies across countries and constituencies.

Influencing recruitment processes . Setting gender targets/objectives has become a common practice in several member country government authorities. Extending such gender objectives to appointments in international organizations should be encouraged. Constituencies could also incorporate gender objectives and expectations formally in their agreements on rotation arrangements; for example, some constituencies have adopted regular rotations of male and female candidates at the Executive Director and Alternate Executive Director level to ensure at least one member of the country’s/constituency’s leadership is a woman at all times. While this example showcases an effective approach, it is recognized that it may not be applicable to all.

Strengthen pipelines . Executive Board members should work with authorities to help develop strategies to build pipelines of women in senior positions that could be considered for leadership positions at the IMF Executive Board, including through mentoring, proactive identification and recruitment, and by highlighting the work of the IMF Executive Board.

Recognition of positive progress . Acknowledging the importance of positive recognition, the WGGD will, in addition to highlighting countries/constituencies with current female representation at the highest level, consider further ways to shine light on the progress being made, including in the progress reports to the Board of Governors.

• Accountability and Measuring Progress

14. The proposed objective is a collective goal to increase the number of women on the Board, while the decisions to select candidates for the roles of Executive Director and Alternate Executive Director rests with individual member country authorities. These individual decisions should, however, pursue the shared goal of improving the governance of the Fund through greater gender diversity on the Executive Board.

15. Reporting and accountability is important for enacting change and monitoring progress through time. In addition to its regular reporting to the Board of Governors on the gender diversity profile of the Executive Board, data on each chair’s/constituency’s representation of women in leadership positions over the last ten years with the Executive Board will be published on IMFConnect on a regular basis. Selected data on the gender composition of Offices of Executive Director will also be shared with the Board of Governors and included in the Fund’s Annual Report.

16. The WGGD will continue its work to raise awareness about the need for improved gender diversity in the Executive Board at all levels and garner support for the need for action, including through the following actions:

i) Consider ways to support the implementation of the collective voluntary objectives for the appointment of women as Executive Director and Alternate Executive Director as well as regular reporting on the progress made in the determined timeframe.

ii) Continue to report on the progress made towards meeting the voluntary targets introduced in 2016 for Senior Advisor (35% – 45%) and Advisor (40% – 50%) level over time.

Senior Advisors: Status of Voluntary Targets35%-45%

iii) Share best practices to help members to develop a pipeline of candidates for Executive Director and Alternative Executive Director positions to help meet the voluntary objectives.

iv) Consider other ways to engage member country authorities and ensure their support and participation towards reaching the objectives, to be reviewed and agreed by the Executive Board.

v) Continue to support activities to build a supportive work environment for women working in the Executive Board, including through the OED Women’s Network, and continue engaging with other IFIs to exchange experiences and best practices on how to improve Board gender diversity.

17. To support this initiative and ongoing conversation, the Executive Board commits to raise this issue with relevant decision makers to garner their support and participation towards reaching the objectives. To this end, Executive Directors will share the attached fact sheet with their authorities.

• Annex I. Spring 2024 Factsheet

Gender Diversity in the IMF Executive Board—Spring 2024

Other IMF Content

• Gender Diversity in The Executive Board—Interim Report of The Executive Board to The Board of Governors
• Gender Diversity In The Executive Board—Report Of The Executive Board To The Board Of Governors
• Gender Diversity in the Executive Board—Draft Report of the Executive Board to the Board of Governors
• IMF Executive Board’s First Report to the Board of Governors on Gender Diversity in the Executive Board
• Invested in Gender Diversity
• Gender Diversity at the Executive Board and its Shared Benefits
• IMF Strategy Toward Mainstreaming Gender
• Board Gender Diversity in ASEAN
• Since the time of the last report of the Executive Board on its gender diversity, profound changes have taken place globally, exposing wide social and economic disparities.
• Interim Guidance Note on Mainstreaming Gender at The IMF

Other Publishers

Asian development bank.

• CAREC Gender Assessment: Supplementary Documentary for the CAREC Gender Strategy 2030
• CAREC Gender Strategy 2030
• Gender Gaps in Ownership of Nonagricultural Enterprises in Georgia, Mongolia, and the Philippines
• Greater Mekong Subregion Gender Strategy
• Impact of Gender Inequality on Long-Term Economic Growth in Mongolia
• Gender-Responsive Procurement in Asia and the Pacific: An Opportunity for an Equitable Economic Future
• Enhancing Gender Equality in Infrastructure Development: Theories of Change, Indicators, and Sector Strategies
• Accelerating Gender Equality in the Agribusiness Sector
• Barriers to Entry: Decomposing the Gender Gap in Job Search in Urban Pakistan
• Exploring the Gender Dimensions of Unpaid Care Work in the Lao People's Democratic Republic

Food and Agriculture Organization

• Gender, water and agriculture: Assessing the nexus in Egypt
• Good practices for promoting gender equality through rural advisory services: Case studies from Ethiopia, India and Peru

Inter-American Development Bank

• Executive Summary: Evaluation of the Bank's Support for Gender and Diversity
• Evaluation of the Bank's Support for Gender and Diversity
• Approach Paper: Evaluation of the Bank's Support for Gender and Diversity
• Gender Mainstreaming at the IDB: A Report to the Board of Executive Directors on the Implementation of the WID Action Plan 1998-2001
• An Integrated Analysis of the Impact of Gender Diversity on Innovation and Productivity in Manufacturing Firms
• Social, Racial and Gender Profile of the 500 largest Brazilian Companies: Executive Summary
• The Public Sector Premium and the Gender Gap in Latin America: Evidence from the 1980s and 1990s
• Women in the Americas: Bridging the Gender Gap
• Working Within Confines: Occupational Segregation by Gender in Three Latin American Countries
• Gender Gaps in Entrepreneurship and their Macroeconomic Effects in Latin America

International Labour Organization

• Gender equality and decent work: Selected ILO Conventions and Recommendations that promote gender equality as of 2012. Third revised edition 2012

The World Bank

• Gender Diversity in Ghanaian Boardrooms: An Abridged Report on Women on Boards of Corporate and Public Institutions in Ghana.
• Gender Diversity in Jordan: Research on the Impact of Gender Diversity on the Economic Performance of Companies in Jordan.
• Exploring the Diversity of Young People Not in Employment, Education or Training: The Gender Profile of NEETs in Georgia and Armenia
• Closing the Gender Gaps among Marginalized Roma in the Western Balkans: A Summary of Findings and Policy Recommendations
• Colombia Gender Assessment
• Compensation, Diversity and Inclusion at the World Bank Group
• Women in the Pipeline: A Dynamic Decomposition of Firm Pay Gaps
• Women and Trade: The Role of Trade in Promoting Gender Equality
• Gender and Investment Climate Reform Assessment: Pacific Regional Executive Summary.

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Liberia: President Boakai Suspends Drug Enforcement Agency Director, Deputies Amid Continued Infighting and Damaging Allegations

Liberia: president boakai holds bilateral talks with south korean counterpart yoon at korea-africa summit, forges partnership in advancing arrest agenda, liberia: senator albert chie calls for speedy rehabilitation of local airports to boost economic activities, tourism and surveillance, karnplay magisterial court unduly releases several cartons of potentially life-saving drugs to cross-border.

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• From Aid Recipient to Aid Donor: Envisioning a Transformative Role for Liberia
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Liberia Launches National Policy Dialogue Platform on Gender Equality

Monrovia – The Liberian Government through the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has officially launched the National Policy Dialogue Platform.

By: Blamo N. Toe

The National Policy Dialogue Platform is under Component 4 of the Liberia Women Empowerment Project, and is being implemented by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection with funding from the World Bank. Officially performing the launch of the project at the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Ministerial Complex in Congo Town, Thursday, May 30, 2024, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Gbeme Horace-Kollie said the Policy Dialogue Platform is intended to support existing interventions to policies relating to gender equality, women’s economic empowerment and gender-based violence. She added that the initiative is established under the Liberia Women Empowerment Project, financed by the World Bank, noting that activities of the platform will essentially drive policy reforms and review specific areas, including gender-based violence, resilient livelihoods and climate change adaptation with the overall objective of identifying areas for policy reforms. “The platform will be the spring boat on which the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection will stand to strengthen the leadership for women to stir the affairs of policy agenda that promotes the interest of women and girls,” Minister Horace-Kollie noted. The top government official indicated that as the nation seeks to answer how the national government prioritizes addressing gender equality, stressing that it is very crucial for more attention to be given to addressing sexual harassment, lower representation of women, domestic violence and discrimination among others. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my hope that this significant platform will be the beginning of the journey that finds a pathway for inclusive and sustainable policy that drives empowerment, equality and protection for all women and girls in Liberia. At this point, I now declare the National Policy Dialogue Platform officially launched,” Minister Gbeme Horace-Kollie asserted. Also giving the overview of the Liberia Women Empowerment Project, its National Project Coordinator, Cllr. Margaret Nigba said the project runs for five (5) years and it is divided into five components. The project, according to Cllr. Nigba, is a US$44.6 million multi-sectoral initiative to address key barriers to gender equality in Liberia which aligns with government priorities on women’s empowerment and sexual and gender-based violence. Cllr. Nigba also stressed that the project seeks response, while complementing ongoing investments and piloting new initiatives in healthcare, education and SGBV survivor services. “The overall objective of the project is to improve social and livelihood services for women and rights in targeted communities, foster positive social reforms and strengthen the government’s capacity to advance women and girl’s empowerment, ” she noted. Remarks, Liberia’s Country Manager for World Bank, Madam Georgia Wallen expressed delight for forming part of the launch of the Policy Dialogue Platform under World Bank-financed Liberia Women Empowerment Project. She said this breakthrough project aims to support the GOL in amplifying women’s voice, agency, and economic opportunities at scale, adding that the WBG mission to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity on a livable planet is inclusive of all – with special focus on women and youth. “Gender equality is unachievable without a sustained and broad-based effort involving changes in policies and institutions to address multiple challenges simultaneously. This is the motivation behind establishment of a policy dialogue platform aimed at bolstering the leadership role of the Gender Ministry to prioritize and advocate for key policy and legal reforms needed for advancing gender equality and empowering women and girls in the country,” Madam Wallen noted. However, in addition to the World Bank, other international partners for the implementation of the project include the European Union, UN Women, UNFPA, UNDP, Embassy of Sweden, Embassy of Ireland, ECOWAS and UN Human Rights Commission, as the presence of those partners was felt through representations and remarks.

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Thurgood Marshall: a Champion for Justice and Equality

This essay about Thurgood Marshall explores his life, career, and impact on American civil rights and justice. It highlights his early experiences with racial discrimination, his legal education under Charles Hamilton Houston, and his significant achievements as the chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Marshall’s most notable accomplishment was the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education, which helped dismantle school segregation. The essay also covers his historic appointment as the first African American Supreme Court Justice and his advocacy for justice and equality during his tenure. Marshall’s legacy is shown as a testament to his perseverance, intellect, and commitment to civil rights and social justice.

How it works

Thurgood Marshall emerges as a resonant figure in the annals of American history, particularly concerning civil liberties and the apex court. Hailing from Baltimore, Maryland, born on July 2, 1908, Marshall’s odyssey from a lad confronting racial bias to assuming the mantle of the premier African American Supreme Court Justice stands as a narrative of unparalleled distinction. His trajectory epitomized an unyielding commitment to equity and impartiality, a legacy that endures, shaping the legal and societal landscape of the United States.

Marshall’s formative years were steeped in direct encounters with racial segregation and bias.

These encounters galvanized his resolve to champion justice. After being rebuffed by the University of Maryland Law School due to his racial background, he sought solace in Howard University Law School. Here, he found a guiding light in Charles Hamilton Houston, an astute legal mind and fervent champion of civil liberties. Houston’s mentorship proved pivotal, equipping Marshall with the strategic acumen to contest and dismantle institutionalized racism within the legal framework.

One of Marshall’s seminal contributions materialized during his tenure as the principal counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Here, he masterminded a series of legal confrontations against racial segregation, culminating in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954. Arguing before the Supreme Court, Marshall presented a compelling case, asserting the inherent inequality of segregated schools, thus contravening the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to annul the “separate but equal” doctrine heralded a watershed moment, catalyzing the civil rights movement and the integration of public schools nationwide.

However, the triumph in Brown v. Board of Education merely constituted one pinnacle in Marshall’s illustrious career. Over the years, he contested and emerged victorious in 29 out of 32 cases before the Supreme Court, spanning a diverse array of issues from suffrage to criminal justice reform. His legal acumen and unflagging dedication markedly propelled the cause of racial parity and laid the groundwork for future strides in civil liberties.

In 1967, Thurgood Marshall clinched a historic milestone when President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated him to the Supreme Court, etching his name as the premier African American to grace the apex court. During his 24-year tenure, Marshall garnered renown for his unwavering advocacy for justice and equity. He consistently championed the safeguarding of individual rights, particularly for marginalized segments of society. His judicial pronouncements and dissents resonated with a deep-seated concern for civil liberties, economic fairness, and the rights of the accused.

Marshall’s influence transcended his legal triumphs. He staunchly advocated for the notion of a living Constitution, evolving to meet the exigencies of a changing society. He espoused the belief that the law should serve as a conduit for good, advocating fairness and equity for all citizens. This ethos permeated his judicial rulings and public pronouncements, where he underscored the paramountcy of social justice and the judiciary’s role in upholding democratic values.

Despite encountering myriad challenges and opposition throughout his career, Marshall remained steadfast in his pursuit of justice. He recognized that the struggle for civil liberties transcended mere legal victories, encompassing a broader endeavor to reshape societal attitudes. His legacy echoes in the strides made towards racial parity and ongoing endeavors to combat systemic injustice in America. Marshall’s life and career stand as a testament to the potency of perseverance, intellect, and moral fortitude. He exemplified how the law could serve as a potent instrument for societal transformation when wielded with purpose and integrity. His contributions to American jurisprudence and civil liberties bequeath an indelible legacy, inspiring future generations of legal luminaries, adjudicators, and activists to perpetuate the quest for justice and equity.

Marshall’s narrative epitomizes not only legal triumphs but also profound personal valor. He confronted formidable personal and professional risks in his crusade against racial inequity. Yet, his unwavering dedication to justice and equity remained unassailable. This unwavering commitment to righteousness, irrespective of personal sacrifice, underscores Marshall’s eminence as an influential figure. Reflecting on Marshall’s legacy, it becomes apparent that his impact transcended the courtroom. He stood as a visionary leader cognizant of the broader ramifications of legal battles and the imperative of sustained, strategic endeavors to effect substantive progress. His saga serves as a poignant reminder that the pursuit of justice demands not only legal acumen but also courage, resolve, and an abiding commitment to the principles of equality and human dignity.

Marshall’s imprint reverberates in the wider cultural shift towards heightened acknowledgment of civil liberties. His legal victories served as a clarion call, galvanizing public sentiment and emboldening fellow civil liberties advocates. His endeavors laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, with his influence reverberating in contemporary social justice movements. His modus operandi in civil liberties litigation also established pivotal legal precedents, informing legal practice and safeguarding individual rights.

Throughout his vocation, Marshall evinced a profound comprehension of the law’s potential to precipitate societal transformation. He harnessed his legal acumen not merely to secure victories in court but to propel a broader agenda of equity and justice. His strategic approach to civil liberties litigation entailed meticulously selecting cases poised to exert maximal impact and leveraging them to challenge and dismantle institutionalized racism.

In his twilight years on the Supreme Court, Marshall persisted in championing the rights of the marginalized and underscoring the indispensability of a vigilant and proactive judiciary. Frequently finding himself in the minority on court rulings, his dissents resonated with eloquence and power, articulating a vision of a more just and equitable society. His judicial ethos underscored the imperative of the law to shield the most vulnerable members of society and ensure equitable access to justice for all.

Marshall’s life and career furnish a wellspring of inspiration for all those committed to the cause of justice and equity. His legacy serves as a poignant reminder of the transformative potential inherent in the actions of a single individual in shaping the trajectory of history and espousing the ideals of justice and equality for all. Through his indefatigable endeavors, Marshall demonstrated that the struggle for civil liberties constitutes a protracted and arduous journey, yet one imbued with profound significance, warranting unyielding dedication and determination.

In summation, Thurgood Marshall’s essence finds its quintessence in his lifelong dedication to justice, his epochal legal triumphs, and his historic incumbency as the premier African American Supreme Court Justice. His endeavors laid the groundwork for momentous strides in civil liberties and serve as a lodestar for those striving towards a more equitable and just society. Through his enduring legacy, Marshall epitomizes the profound impact wielded by a solitary individual in shaping the trajectory of history and advancing the principles of justice and equality for all. His life stands as a testament to the potency of perseverance, intellect, and moral rectitude in the perennial struggle for civil liberties and social justice.

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). Thurgood Marshall: A Champion for Justice and Equality . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/thurgood-marshall-a-champion-for-justice-and-equality/ [Accessed: 5-Jun-2024]

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