Achieving gender equity has become a hot-button social and political issue, thanks in part to growing awareness among citizens, in particular younger generations. This goal is also a critical one in organizations and companies, where there is still a long way to go. (To cite an example, in 2022 only one out of five managers in Italy were women.) The truth is that gender inequality is a drag on economic growth. In point of fact: estimates suggest that if women entrepreneurs had no obstacles to overcome to develop their business, the world’s GDP could grow by 2%.
In the latest edition of the Women’s Forum Barometer, interesting data emerge on how people perceive the gender gap in G7 countries. The study sample consisted of 3,500 citizens of France, Canada, the UK, the US, Germany, Italy, and Japan; the methodological starting point of the research is the idea that inequalities are a function of people’s perceptions of the societies, institutions, and organizations where they live and work. (For example, a century ago women’s suffrage was an essential measure of gender equality, whereas today this is clearly no longer the case.)
Almost all respondents (around 90%) believe that women should be treated the same way as men, but only 65% think that inequality is widespread in the world. In the professional sphere, gender stereotypes are still strong: 29% of respondents say that men are naturally more ambitious than women, while 46% believe that “you can’t have it all, if you want to be a good mother, you have to accept to partly sacrifice your professional career.” (This percentage has improved compared to 50% in the previous survey.) At the same time, 34% of men surveyed (compared to 22% of women) believe that the key to a woman’s happiness is being a mother rather than having a professional career.
On the other hand, two out of three people (67%) concede that gender inequality in the work world is a problem, and 62% believe that women have fewer opportunities to achieve success compared to men with similar skill sets. For concrete proof of how gender impacts work, we can look at career breaks. While 41% of women worked part-time for at least one year to care for someone (compared to 24% for men), 38% stopped working for at least one month for the same reason (again the same applies to only 24% of men.) The fallout of these phenomena is highly detrimental to professional growth: 38% of women have not sought new responsibilities in their jobs, and 18% have actually turned down promotions.
The findings of this study reveal a substantial alignment between the perception and the reality of the gender gap in political and professional spheres. In fact, three respondents out of four believe that in Italy, women are not equal to men in terms of their social, political, and economic rights. And this perception is corroborated by actual data on women in the parliaments (29.6%) and national governments (36.8%) of G7 countries. On the job, the gender gap is even more striking, and not only as it relates to pay. In the EU, it has been estimated that 75% of domestic work and unpaid care is done by women, with negative repercussions on their economic security.
Last of all, worth mentioning are the specificities of certain countries on the panel. Gender stereotypes in professional settings are far below average in France and Canada, but more common in Japan and Germany. Unsurprisingly, only 72% of German and Japanese respondents believe that bridging the gender gap should be a priority in their respective countries (compared to the overall average of 77%). Italy stands out with the highest percentage of people (43%) who say that achieving gender equality should be a top priority. (The overall average stands at 30%.) At the same time, two out of three Italians recognize that there is widespread inequality (once again, the highest proportion).
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