World's girls cheated in the game of life

Plan CEO Ian Wishart thinks the pathway for girls to full participation in the global economy is like a game of snakes and ladders.

By Ian Wishart, CEO of Plan in Australia

Across the world a girl's pathway to full participation in the global economy is like a game of snakes and ladders. The ladders represent opportunities and expanding horizons. The snakes represent contracting options and discrimination. Unfortunately, in the version that girls get to play, the snakes currently far outnumber the ladders.

It remains a rarity for girls across the world to develop to their full potential, let alone become active players in local and national economies. It is even rarer for them to receive equal reward for their efforts.

For girls in Australia the game up to the end of tertiary education is mostly about ladders of opportunity. In 2008, Australia ranked second in the world on the UN Gender Development Index. Girls in Australia generally get a great start in life - through safe birth, solid post-natal care, access to early childhood services and virtually 100 per cent completion of primary school. The secondary school completion rate for girls is also higher than boys and they make up 57 per cent of higher education students.  

It is when girls start working that the snakes become more obvious. For women aged 25 to 44 – the prime career years – Australia ranks eighth lowest for workforce participation amongst OECD countries.

Then there is the wage gap. On average, female graduates start on lower salaries – a trend that continues throughout their lives. Even if a woman becomes a CEO, she will likely be paid just two-thirds of the median male CEO wage. At some stage in their careers, no matter how stellar, women are likely to encounter the glass ceiling that limits their progress; women fill only 2 per cent of chairperson positions and 8.3 per cent of board directorships in ASX 200 listed companies.

In the developing world, however, the obstacles to economic participation for girls are even worse. Plan International’s new Because I Am A Girl report reveals that in the version of the game these girls are forced to play, there are more snakes, they appear much earlier, and there is further to fall.

Surviving birth is the first obstacle for millions of girls, with boys often favoured as descendants and heirs. Simply being a female is then often enough to diminish your economic opportunities, with very few rights to property, assets and land – a snake that has huge consequences in countries where many parents are dying from AIDS. Also pervasive is the expectation that female children will from an early age take responsibility for domestic and child minding tasks, limiting a girl’s time and space to grow, learn, and develop other skills while her brothers go to school.

When it comes to the important education stages that are a preparation for work, the inequalities for girls in developing countries become even more extreme. In many traditional communities girls’ education is still seen as unnecessary. When these attitudes are mixed with economic hardship, it’s usually girls who are the first to be withdrawn from school to help at home.

Adolescence is also a particularly vulnerable period, a time when the world expands for boys but contracts for girls; movement is often curtailed, and they are susceptible to early or forced marriage and early pregnancy. In many countries they face an extremely high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and consequently having their health and ability to work derailed. Too often enforced social norms mean they lack any female friends or mentors that can provide them with an alternative role model, other than to fulfill their domestic duties.

But this is not just a loaded game that impacts on individual girls. The evidence suggests that this failure to prepare and enable women to participate in economic activity is costing the global economy billions of dollars. There are 500 million adolescent girls and young women in developing countries who could and should be making a much larger contribution to economic life.

If these women could be empowered economically it would have a profound effect on families and national economies. On average women invest 90 per cent of their income back into their families. Each extra year of education for a girl results in an increase in her income of between 10 to 20 per cent. Educated girls have a much better chance in life and are more likely to educate their own children thus breaking the cycle of poverty. Educated girls are also able to participate in the emerging service sectors that fuel the growth of modern economies.    

As we seek to emerge from the global economic crisis it is timely to remind ourselves that in most economies there is still untapped potential in the contribution that women can make – the report highlights that improved female education and participation in the labor market can have enormous impacts for GDP growth, with ongoing benefits for the global economy.

In seeking to build a new era of global prosperity, there is no doubt that removing the snakes faced by girls in the developing world is not just in their interests – it will benefit us all.

Ian Wishart is chief executive of Plan International in Australia. The Because I Am A Girl report is available at www.becauseiamagirl.com.au