Christine Lagarde On The Systemic Issues Facing Women Around The World Forbes

The speaker discusses the importance of reducing the participation and wage gaps between men and women in order to address rising inequalities. They express frustration that despite research and evidence supporting the benefits of gender equality, progress is still slow. The speaker emphasizes the need for legal changes to eliminate discrimination against women and highlights the role of culture in perpetuating gender inequality. They encourage individuals in positions of leadership to create opportunities for younger women and to continue advocating for gender equality. I would love, now that we are, as I said, so the dust is settling with the Me Too movement, for you to spend a little bit of time talking about where you see the world today in the context of what's happened in the women's space, but also particularly because you are in those conversations, those meetings, those quarters of power that still are so male dominated. So I would love to hear what you see and what's been surprising to you. If we could reduce the participation gap, if we could reduce the wage gap that exists between men and women in all countries of the world, including the Nordic countries that praise themselves with doing a lot better than the others, I'm sure that we could address some of the key issues that are at the forefront of our agenda and our list of concerns, one of which is clearly the rising inequalities that we see around the world, which is affecting in particular the middle class in many countries of the world. And when I look at all the membership that we have, 189 countries, the sort of average gap in terms of women's participation, even in advanced economies, is still 16%, one sixth. If you look at the wage gap, because participation is number of women in the workforce as compared with men in the workforce, so we have a significant gap there. But when we look at the wage gap, same thing, we have still in advanced economies as well as in emerging and low-income countries a significant gap. So one way of reducing inequalities that actually have a bearing on stability, have a bearing on productivity, have a bearing on growth, is to actually reduce those gaps to make sure that there is no such inequality, fully and totally unjustified by all the research and the work that has been done by us at the IMF, but also by many other international and national organisations. It's just a no-brainer that economies would grow, that productivity would improve and that we would have more stability. So I'm at a loss as to why it doesn't happen and why it doesn't happen more quickly. When I took over as head of the IMF, I was convinced that we had to do more research, more analytical work in order to identify the policies, whether it's a tax rule, whether it's public spending, whether it's structural reforms, whether it's making sure that countries have childcare centres in the arsenal of tools. I was really determined that we could find ways of helping close that gap. And there are multiple ways. It depends on countries, it depends on how developed those economies and those societies are, but it requires a long-standing effort. So when you say the dust is settling, it is settling in a way, but I wish it wasn't settling because I think that it's a long-standing quest and one that has no finishing line, I'm afraid. So I don't think that we should be resigned to it. I don't think that we should be aggressive about it, but I think we should be just steady at identifying wherever we are, whatever organisation we belong to, whatever position we hold, where there is a gap, where there is a discrimination, where there is a legal impediment. I'll give you one example which I found striking because I was a lawyer by background and a lawyer is a lawyer is a lawyer. And we did a study together with the World Bank which demonstrates that of the 189 countries that are members of our two organisations, about 150 of them have in their constitution, in their legal framework, for lack of a better word, discriminations that operate against women. Now in the worst case scenario you have prohibition to inherit when the parents die. You have no right to have title to land. You cannot produce a collateral if you want to borrow money. And it goes into all sorts of much more insidious ways in terms of authority, ability to take ownership, ability to have custody, and it goes on and on and on. So being a lawyer by background I say let us start with the legal basis first and make sure that there is no legal discrimination and from there on then you build and you start changing the culture because it has a lot to do with culture. There are only six countries in the world at this point in time where there is no legal discrimination at all between men and women. That's really, really few. So we need to work on that and as I said, yes the dust is settling in a way but the race is on and I don't see any finishing line. It doesn't make me sad or depressed because I think that there is a lot of inner strength in the women's movement in all of you and in each and every one of us in order to just carry on and wherever we are push, push, push and make space around us. So you are all in position of some leadership, somehow, somewhere in your life. Make sure that it's not just about you but that there are other younger women that are also coming up the ranks so that the day when you stop they are there to also make space for others. That's my very strong wish.