Why Women Aren’t Working!
Our greatest economic asset is our under ‘exploited’ global female workforce. Achieving parity would grow GDP by trillions so why are we still sitting on our hands?
Let’s face it…there are a few obstacles at the moment to celebrating the IWD theme of Accelerate Action, not least that we’re given the loudhailer for such brief window of time! Todays ‘celebration’ does however offer a moment in which to zoom in on some hard truths. We’re at one of the most critical and destabilising junctures in our history, the tectonic plates are shifting, the court of Nero occupies the White House, the institutions built and hard learned lessons that evolved after WW2 are all under threat in this purely transactional world. Vulnerable women and children are in danger more than ever. It’s a moment that not only threatens the trajectory of our collective future but speaks to our very humanity. Will we let the developing world become the abandoned world? Or will we stand up and fight for the beliefs we hold dear and the future of fellow humans we may never meet, work with or even do a deal with! The only tangible personal gain to be had is our children living in a more stable equal and equitable world… (which sounds pretty tempting to me!)
The Short-Sightedness of Cutting Foreign Aid
The power of the international organisations we built after WW2 to prevent a third, from the UN to NATO, the remarkable advances we’ve made in the last century, whether in vaccination, education, reducing malnutrition, creating infrastructure and encouraging development are all behind us. Instead we are faced with a stark unpredictable and unsettling reality. The recent cancellation of USAID programs and further dramatic reduction to the UK’s development budget, have turned back the clock on the world’s poorest nations. We are watching in real time as health, education, and nutrition programs for millions of children are being wiped out. This is not just a cut in financial assistance—it is the severing of lifelines for vulnerable women and children who depend on these programs for survival.
Across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East, more than 40 countries are grappling with the cessation of vital foreign assistance. We are now seeing the direct effects of these cuts on the ground. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), hundreds of thousands of people, including children, will stop receiving vital treatment for diseases like mpox and cholera. In Somalia, over 83,000 children will no longer receive life-saving treatment for malnutrition. In Sudan, 300,000 people will go hungry, and over one million people will lose access to nutrition and medical care.
In Kenya, over 154,600 children under five, as well as 142,100 pregnant and lactating women, will miss out on lifesaving interventions. In Mozambique, 2,177 tonnes of essential food aid remain stuck in warehouses, while families in the Zambezia province face growing food insecurity. In Tanzania, 225,000 pregnant women are at heightened risk of malnutrition, and vital disease programs have been put on hold.
These are just a few examples of the direct consequences of these aid cuts. Women and children—the most vulnerable members of society—are bearing the brunt of these decisions. The disruption of these critical programs does not just impact individuals—it destabilizes entire regions. It creates fertile ground for conflict, and for the kind of instability that we will, in the end, all have to pay for. In this new transactional landscape it stinks of a very bad deal.
These cuts are not just cruel; they are economically irresponsible. In a world where women’s labour and contributions are under-utilized, failing to support them into work and ensuring they can stay there represents a lost opportunity that could take us decades to recover from. Closing the women’s health gap would add $1trillion to the global economy, the equivalent of 137 million women accessing full-time jobs. The decisions we are making today could cause irreparable damage to our global economic recovery and future prosperity.
We’re at a crossroads, and the path we take in the coming months and years will shape the future not only for these women and children but our own collective global future. It’s an unprecedented crisis but simultaneously, an unprecedented opportunity to rise to the challenge of saving lives and securing that better, more prosperous future for all.
‘SDG 5: The Imperative Goal That Will Unlock Progress Across All Areas
So let’s return to that theme of accelerating action, because we have a vital and barely exploited asset begging to be utilised. These are transactional times and the greatest global untapped resource is a very human one; the under-supported, underfunded and under-utilised female population. Without empowering and elevating women’s ability to contribute to our global economy we are recklessly ignoring our greatest route to growth.
Research and data from McKinsey, the World Bank, and the UN all demonstrates that empowering women economically could add trillions to global GDP. Empowering women in the workforce is not merely a matter of equity but an economic imperative. According to a McKinsey report in 2015, achieving gender parity in labor force participation and entrepreneurship would have added $28 trillion to global GDP by 2025. That’s 265-or the combined size of the American and Chinese economies together. This is faction not fake news. And yet, despite the economic potential, we have so far squandered this opportunity.
Take a moment to think about this: women and girls represent half of the world’s population. Half of its talent. Half of its creativity. Yet, globally, we are still holding them back—whether through systemic inequality in the workplace, the unequal distribution of unpaid care work, reduced access to education and political exclusion not to mention the ever-present threat of exploitation, violence and abuse. Currently, women in the labour market earn, on average, 23% less than men. Women spend three times as many hours in unpaid domestic and care work as men. The barriers to full gender equality are everywhere.
The COVID-19 pandemic has only deepened these inequalities. We saw a rise in gender-based violence, a greater burden of unpaid care work, and women, who make up 70% of the global health and social workforce, were left to shoulder an overwhelming strain on health systems. As if that wasn’t enough, in many places, the most basic rights for women and girls have been systematically eroded, often under the guise of political or economic crises.
Which is why I’m arguing for an urgent need to elevate and prioritize Sustainable Development Goal 5—the goal to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The implementation of SDG 5—gender equality—is not only essential for human rights, but it is the foundation for long-term economic growth, peace, and prosperity. In our current anti-development environment progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, currently at 17% looks set to founder rather than move forward. Yet progress on all 17 goals set out by the UN in 2015 as a blueprint for peace and prosperity for all people on the planet, is arguably even more imperative today. Were we to turn the full singular force of our ambition to Goal 5, we’d have the key to ending the current stasis on every one of those other goals. It’s the linchpin of lasting societal transformation, and the key to unlocking the full potential of our world. Without achieving gender equality, the very fabric of progress in every other area of development will fray. It is no exaggeration to say that the success or failure of our efforts to eradicate poverty, reduce inequality, improve health, and sustain peace hinges on how we address the systemic discrimination and barriers that women and girls in particular face globally.
Empowering the over 50% of the population who continue to struggle against systemic discrimination is the foundation of everything we aspire to. If women are held back, society is held back. If girls cannot access education, health, or opportunities, the entire future of a nation is jeopardized and the global economy impacted.
This is not a question of ideology—it is a question of pragmatism. The world cannot afford to ignore gender equality if it is to progress. If women are empowered, entire societies benefit. It’s not just about moral righteousness; it’s about sustainable economic growth.
A Call to Action: We Must Rise to the Challenge
We are at a pivotal moment. We have an opportunity to change the course of history, but it is up to us to stop wringing our hands and return to individual action. We need to make our voices heard though our actions, whether it’s boycotting products and corporations whose ethos is not representative of our own or ensuring in our daily lives we’re taking a stand for those who are less able to do so. Sure it requires sacrifices, in our time, our effort and in the short term economically, but the result of inaction is unthinkable. This is not just about women and girls—it is about the future of our world. Cutting aid, neglecting the most vulnerable, and abandoning our commitments to gender equality will not only harm those who rely on this support today, but it will undermine the stability, security, and prosperity of the entire planet for years to come.
As Jean-Noël Barrot, the French Foreign Minister, said, "We Europeans are now faced with a choice that is imposed on us: that of effort and freedom, or that of comfort and servitude." The choice we make today will determine whether we rise to the challenge of building a better, more equitable world, or whether we succumb to complacency and inaction.
The stakes have never been higher. This is the moment in which we can make a choice: to invest in the future of women, children, and our global community, or to watch as these vulnerable populations are abandoned. We have the power to act—to rise to this challenge. But that action must come now, and it must come with urgency.
Let us choose effort. Let us choose freedom. Let us choose to build a future where every woman and every child has the opportunity to thrive. And let us do so not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it is the smart thing to do—the best investment if you want to speak the language of the new American Emperor; for our economies, our societies, and for the future of the planet.
Happy International Women’s Day. Your thoughts as ever welcome!
One of the stark contradictions in Reeves as the first woman chancellor is her choice to cut benefits to the poor and protect the interests of the wealthy. Women are disproportionately affected by benefits cuts. Men disproportionately benefit from low taxes on wealth. Women need to call her out
Mariella, I hear you. The problem isn’t just labor being undervalued—it’s that the very structure of society was built to ensure it remains invisible. This isn’t a flaw. It’s by design.
Industrialization shattered the extended family, pulled people into cities, and turned care into a private responsibility instead of a shared one. The nuclear family wasn’t inevitable—it was engineered. With it, women’s work was redefined. Not as labor, not as something with economic value, but as an expectation. Something absorbed into the background. And as care shifted to institutions, aging lost its place in the household.
The post-war era locked this in. The suburban ideal didn’t just separate families—it erased entire generations from public life. Grandparents became dependents, not contributors. Women past their child-rearing years faded from view. And now, hyper-individualization has pushed it even further. If labor isn’t profitable, it isn’t seen. If people aren’t productive, they are discarded.
You lay it out—who benefits? Who profits? The economy runs on unpaid work, yet the ones doing it are kept dependent. The system doesn’t just survive on this—it is built on it. And because it functions so smoothly, so invisibly, even those challenging it fail to see the full depth of its design.
So what changes? Not just policy. Not just representation. The culture itself. The definitions of labor, of leadership, of value. Until those shift, nothing else will.