00:00Salya Saidi, thank you so much for joining us.
00:01So there's, you know, every year you have this fabulous report that gives us an indication of temperature,
00:06of how female participation in the labor force, politicians and executives is doing.
00:11What's your main finding this year?
00:13So 20 years of data, which means we can actually say something about sort of the patterns globally.
00:19And here's what we find, that there is nothing inevitable about this progress, but there has been progress.
00:25So we've got the highest overall closure of the global gender gap across that entire 20 years.
00:31About 69% of that gap has been closed.
00:34But given the past rates of change, if we project them out into the future, it's still going to take
00:39120 years to get to parity.
00:41I mean, and is this across the board?
00:43Is it in politics, in the world of chief executives, or are there sectors or even countries that are doing
00:48better than others?
00:49So there's a combination of good and bad news.
00:51When it comes to education, that gap is nearly closed.
00:54When it comes to health, that gap is nearly closed.
00:57When it comes to economic participation, only about over 60% of that gap is closed.
01:01And when it comes to political empowerment, just about 22%.
01:04But there has been change, right?
01:06So in terms of economic participation, that has been improving over time.
01:11When it comes to politics, that was the biggest gap 20 years ago when we started.
01:15But if we look at the journey over those 20 years, it used to be that one out of every
01:20eight male ministers, one female minister for every eight male ministers, now that's one in four, that ratio.
01:28When it comes to parliamentarians, it used to be one versus five.
01:31Now it's one versus three.
01:32So there has been change when it comes to what political leadership around the world looks like.
01:37And it's very similar when it comes to the corporate world.
01:40But there is a persistent gap.
01:42So when it comes to entry-level roles, about 46% of the entry-level roles are occupied by women.
01:48When it comes to who's in the C-suite, 23%.
01:51So there is that big drop to the top.
01:53And it's just a consistent pattern across industries.
01:56Sadia, I mean, I find it quite surprising because we read in the news a lot about especially the U
02:00.S., you know, doing less diversity, pushing females less in the corporate world.
02:05So, again, is it a timeline that we're looking at?
02:08Or we've made, you know, so much progress?
02:10And so it's just a little bit of a blick back in time.
02:13So I think there's a mix of things going on.
02:15You know, you mentioned the U.S.
02:16Between last year and this year, they've fallen five places in the rankings.
02:20And there has been a pulling back in terms of labor force participation and, you know, wage equality and political
02:27representation.
02:29But at the same time, I think what this is really about is that if you look at the overall
02:3320 years, every time there's a crisis, it's essentially women's roles that are lost faster.
02:39We saw that with the pandemic.
02:40We've seen that with what's happening now in terms of geopolitics.
02:44You're starting to see that pulling back in some of the Gulf countries, for example.
02:48And I think what it comes down to, and this is anecdotal, right, we can't say this from the data,
02:52but we tend to revert to traditional models of leadership during periods of shock and crisis.
02:57And I think that's what we're seeing consistently.
02:59Is there something that you said out of all of your years of experience that you say, actually, this would
03:05make things a little bit better?
03:06Are there policies in, again, either sectors or governments that can make a difference?
03:10I mean, certainly workplaces need to change.
03:13Certainly there are many parts of the world where there have been over 2,000 legal reforms since the 1970s
03:19that have improved the legal rights for women.
03:21But it's really about implementing them and putting them in place.
03:24So some of those things need to happen.
03:26But I would say if we're headed into this new economy, then we need a totally new approach to talent.
03:32So let's look at AI.
03:33This is a sector that is only recently booming.
03:37But it's amazing how quickly it's essentially replicated the patterns of the past.
03:42So only one in five engineers is a woman, and there tend to be concentrated where there is more female
03:49talent.
03:50It tends to be people in data annotation roles, for example, which is the lowest skilled work in the AI
03:55industry.
03:55So when it comes to the game changers, I think it's really about changing those sectors that are going to
04:02be shaping the new economy.
04:03I mean, does AI actually make it more difficult for women to have a fairer chance?
04:08I mean, you're absolutely right that there is that other impact, too.
04:11It's not just about who's in the industry, but it's also about what is AI doing to the labor market
04:15more broadly.
04:16And women do tend to be more represented in those professions that are likely to get disrupted by AI.
04:22But I think the key message here is none of this is inevitable, none of this is set in stone.
04:26We need not think that just because it took this long up until now that it absolutely will take 120
04:32years.
04:33I think there are levers to pull, and one of those is ensuring that more women are going into the
04:38professions of the future
04:39and that there's more gender-disaggregated view to reskilling and upskilling.
04:44How's Europe doing?
04:45So Europe is definitely one of the regions that is overall doing quite well.
04:50It's tended to occupy about 70% of the top 10 rankings over the last 20 years.
04:56And if the pattern of change of the past holds into the future, it's going to be the second region
05:03that will reach parity in about 70 years,
05:05which is maybe just about in the lifetime of the next generation.
05:10When you look at the world economy, we talk about disruptions.
05:13It's AI, it's data centers, valuations, but you don't really know where they go.
05:18It's oil prices, inflation.
05:20What are you seeing?
05:21So we have our next chief economist outlook coming out actually next week in New York.
05:26And I'm going to give you just a hint of what is going to be in there.
05:30What the chief economists are telling us is that they are a lot more positive about the state of the
05:36global economy this September than they were, let's say, back in May,
05:40because they've seen a lot more resilience overall in the economy.
05:43But when it comes to looking at the nature of future shocks and uncertainty and fragmentation, they expect that to
05:50continue to grow.
05:51And they're not particularly positive about how much longer this type of resilience can last.
05:57That said, they are giving credit to some of the fiscal expansion that most governments have put in place over
06:04the last few years,
06:04ever since this series of successive shocks.
06:07They're quite impressed with how quickly supply chains are diversifying and how quickly businesses have responded.
06:13They're less impressed with how things are going, for example, in terms of national preparedness.
06:18And they're certainly worried about the cost of living crisis that is likely to hit people more as high prices
06:25continue.
06:25And there must be almost is there a direct correlation actually between the gender gap and strong economies?
06:32Yeah. So this is a very interesting one.
06:34So certainly investing in all of your human capital and especially with the type of economies that we're now in
06:40leads to more competitive, higher growth, more resilient and sustainable economies.
06:46But that need not be an excuse either.
06:48So we found that countries have been able to pull ahead on gender equality, whether they're very low income countries
06:53or whether they're very high income countries.
06:55So you need not wait to become a high income country to be able to invest in gender equality.
07:01But if you invest in gender equality, you're likely to grow faster.
07:04I mean, talking about gender equality, is it time for the WEF to have a strong female lead at the
07:08head of the World Economic Forum?
07:10Yeah. Well, I can't speak for our board of trustees, but if I were to look at a lot of
07:14the reports that are out there, I hope that there will be good news.
07:17So you've had good news. Congratulations on your new job. You'll take over IATA.
07:23How are you expecting to change it compared to what we've seen IATA do in the past?
07:27Yeah. I mean, it's such an interesting sector, right?
07:31So we've just been talking about technology, geopolitics, workforce issues, sustainability.
07:36And it's the sort of microcosm of all of those issues that we talk about at the World Economic Forum
07:41and the discussions that you and I have had over many years applied to one particular sector.
07:46And not just that sector, but also its broader ecosystem.
07:49So everybody that is in the adjacent industries beyond the airlines themselves.
07:53So I'm very excited to be taking that on.
07:56Will it be different? I mean, I don't know. You haven't started yet.
07:59But there's again, there's a lot of takeovers. It's it's it's really the place to be in in terms of
08:05news.
08:07Let's chat after the first of November when I start.
08:10Sadia, thank you so much for joining us.
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