Original title: report: the real reason for the widening income gap between men and women is unbelievable
Although the voice for equal treatment of men and women is growing, a recent report shows that there is still a long way to go to achieve equality between men and women in terms of work treatment.
A report released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) shows that although the gender gap between women in politics, health and education seems to be gradually narrowing, it is expected that inequality in the workplace will not be eliminated until 2276.
The group said the global gender gap in the workplace has widened further since last year, when gender equality seemed to be only 202 years away.
The annual report tracks gender differences in 153 countries in four areas: education, health, and economic opportunity.
In the workplace, the report examines a variety of factors, including opportunity and pay, and says it will take 257 years to achieve equality in the workplace.
There are some positive developments, such as the general increase in the proportion of women among skilled workers and senior officials. But the report stresses that this trend has been offset by 'stagnation or reversal of disparities in labour market participation and monetary remuneration'.
On average, only 55% of adult women now enter the labor market, compared with 78% for men, while the global average wage of women in similar jobs in similar positions is still 40% lower than that of men.
So what is the reason for this gap? Let's take a look at it
1、 What is the widening income gap between men and women
According to a new report of the world economic forum, the global income gap between men and women will further widen in 2019. It is estimated that it will take 257 years to eliminate the gap, which is more than half a century later than the 202 year predicted by the forum in 2018.
According to the world economic forum, technological change is having a disproportionate impact, with a higher proportion of women in sectors such as retail that have been hit hardest by automation. What's more, there are not enough women entering the fastest growing industries. In almost all the fastest-growing work clusters in the future, there are also huge inequalities, with fewer women in cloud computing, engineering, data and artificial intelligence, and product development.
For its part, the WEF has pledged to at least double the proportion of women currently attending Davos by 2030. However, the report does record some positive developments: the global gender gap - in addition to the economy - has improved in health, education and politics, largely due to the increase in women's political participation. However, the forum expects that it will take nearly 100 years to completely eliminate the gender gap.
3、 How to shorten the income gap between men and women
Encouraging entrepreneurship is one of the most effective measures to alleviate the income gap between men and women. According to the latest data released by the U.S. Department of labor on October 20th, in the third quarter of 2015, the median weekly salary of full-time male employees rose 2.2% from a year ago to $899. The median weekly salary for full-time female employees was $721, up only 0.8% from the previous year. This means that between July and September this year, a male employee earned $1 while a female employee earned only 81.1 cents.
For three consecutive quarters, the increase rate of male employees' income was at least twice as fast as that of female employees. In the second quarter of 2014, the median weekly salary of full-time female employees was equivalent to 83.5% of that of full-time male employees, which was the smallest income gap between men and women since 1979. Until this year, the income gap between men and women has been narrowing, but this is largely due to weak incomes for men - five quarters between 2010 and 2014 - rather than a significant increase in women's incomes.