The United Nations has formed the first High-Level panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment to “provide thought leadership and mobilize concrete actions aimed at closing economic gender gaps that persist around the world.”
“The empowerment of the world’s women is a global imperative,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “Despite important progress in promoting gender equality, there remains an urgent need to address structural barriers to women’s economic empowerment and full inclusion in economic activity.”
The UN has recognized that “If the world is to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, we need a quantum leap in women’s economic empowerment.” The announcement on unwomen.org stated that “women continue to earn less, have fewer assets, bear the burden of unpaid work and care and be largely concentrated in vulnerable and low-paying activities. Women spend more than twice as much time on unpaid care and domestic work as men and women on average are paid 24 per cent less than men globally for the same work.”