Gender wealth gap could take two centuries to close
Bank of America ‘she-conomy’ report calculates equality divide based on current progress
It could take another two centuries to close the gender financial wealth gap as men continue to control the majority of the world’s financial assets, according to a report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
The “she-conomy” report, published one day ahead of International Women’s Day, said improving women’s equality in the workplace could increase global growth over the next six years by a third, or $28tn — or roughly the same as the US and China’s combined annual economic output.
Women are accumulating wealth one and a half times faster than men and are expected to hold $72tn of the world’s financial assets by 2020 — double the 2010 level.
But the economic gender gap is closing at a “snail’s pace” and it could take another 202 years to reach equality at the current rate. The 2017 projection was that it would take 217 years.
The global gender pay gap could also take decades, or centuries in some countries, to close at the current rate of progress. Women in western Europe might start earning the same as men for the same roles in 60 years, while women in North America might have to wait another 165 years, the report calculated.
One factor is also the “motherhood penalty”, when the earning power between women and men returning to work after having a child widens. Over a 12-year period, a woman’s hourly pay rate falls 33 per cent behind a man’s.
Female participation in the workforce remains much lower in the US than most other developed nations but there has been some improvement since the financial crisis, the report finds.
While the percentage of working women with higher education in America had increased, women were still receiving less pay than their male counterparts and the female share in higher-income brackets lagged.
Data compiled from more than 10,000 respondents showed that men were more optimistic about higher pay rises over the next year while women expected to perform at least two and a half times more unpaid work than men.
Board representation has become more diverse over the past decade, the report notes, but there were still four men to every one woman in the average S&P 500 company. Only five boards have 50-50 representation in the boardroom.
Europe offers a more enlightened portrait. There the percentage of women on corporate boards increased threefold over the past 15 years. The trend is expected to continue as the European Commission pushes for set quotas for women on boards.