The Global Economic Forum’s 2021 Global Gender Gap Report sees gender equality as still a long way off. The pre-pandemic estimates predicted it would take 99.5 years, but the current ones are as remote as 135.6 years.
Ana Marta Guillén Rodríguez, director of the Department of Sociology at the University of Oviedo (Spain), explains the inestimable loss that the gender gap entails. Her research led her to conclude that the roots lie in a certain type of cultural approach, which helps to focus on what needs to be done to overcome this situation.
First and foremost, she argues, it is essential to develop public policies and government actions that place ‘work-life balance’ at the centre, creating concrete and continuous services for women. The public sector plays a key role here, yet the private sector can also have an increasingly strong impact on the implementation of welfare initiatives in enterprises.
No less important is the development of cultural policies capable of generating and promoting a diversity of ideas. Education and culture can therefore be very powerful tools to counter the gender gap.
An in-depth analysis in the video interview.