No progress on biases against women in a decade: UN report

World
By William

Biased social norms and COVID-19, when many women lost their income, have stalled progress on inequality, the UN says.

Gender inequality has been stagnant for a decade, according to United Nations research, as cultural biases and pressures continue to hinder women’s empowerment and make it unlikely that the world will meet the UN target of gender equality by 2030.

Gender-biased social norms prevail among both men and women worldwide: nearly 90 percent of people have at least one bias” out of seven analyzed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in a report released Monday.

Despite an increase in women’s rights groups and social movements such as Time’s Up and MeToo in the United States, biased social norms and a broader human development crisis amplified by COVID-19, when many women lost their income, have stalled progress on inequality .

In the report, the UNDP tracks the issue through the Gender Social Norms Index, which uses data from the international research program World Values ​​Survey (WVS).

The research is based on data sets from 2010-14 and 2017-22 with data from 80 countries and territories, covering 85 percent of the world’s population.

Prejudices

The analysis found that nearly nine in ten men and women have fundamental prejudices against women, and the proportion of people with at least one prejudice has barely changed over the past decade.

In 38 of the countries surveyed, the proportion of people with at least one prejudice fell from 86.9 percent to just 84.6 percent.

For example, 69 percent of respondents still believe that men are better political leaders than women, and only 27 percent consider it essential for democracy that women have the same rights as men.

Nearly half – 46 percent – ​​think men are more entitled to a job and 43 percent think men make better business leaders.

A quarter of them also think it is justified for a man to beat his wife and 28 percent think the university is more important for men.

While education has always been hailed as key to improving women’s economic outcomes, the study revealed the broken link between the education gap and income, with an average income gap of 39 percent even in the 57 countries where adult women are more educated than men.

The rate of improvement over time is “disappointing,” said Heriberto Tapia, research and strategic cooperation advisor at UNDP and co-author of the report.

Prejudice creates “barriers” for women and “is reflected in a dismantling of women’s rights in many parts of the world,” the report said.

“Without addressing biased social gender norms, we will not achieve gender equality or the Sustainable Development Goals,” it added.

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