The gender gap costs Spain 212,000 million euros of GDP

The gender gap subtracts 212,179 million euros from the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Spain, which is equivalent to 17.6% of GDP in 2021. Eliminating it would also mean the creation of 2.5 million full-time female jobs. The ClosinGap Index, prepared by PwC, shows that there has been a positive evolution and the indicator stands at 64.7%, 1.4 percentage points more than in the previous year, with which the gender gap has decreased, although it is still 35.3% remains to be covered. With this result, the report calculates that the inequality between men and women will close in 2056.

The reduced participation of women in the labor market, the lower number of hours worked and their overrepresentation in less productive economic sectors means that women only contribute 42.1% of GDP, despite representing 51.4% of the working-age population, according to the report.

Specifically, the Employment indicator stands at 67.2%, 1.1 points more than a year earlier, an improvement based on the increase in the presence of women in leadership positions in private companies and on a smaller gap in pensions. On the negative side, precarious employment has been reduced to a lesser extent for women than for men.

less leisure

The largest gender gap occurs in Conciliation, where inequality exceeds 50%. In addition, there is a slight decrease in the time devoted to leisure for both genders, but it is further reduced for women, who from the start had less free time than men.

The progress towards parity is sustained, according to the report, in the development of the categories of Digitization, Education and Conciliation. The index in Digitization is at 75%, according to PwC, and in Education it rises three points to 71.1%, although the gap in STEM careers is still above 50%.

In turn, the indicator on parity in Health and Well-being has worsened 0.4 percentage points compared to last year, falling from 84.4% to 84.0%. It has worsened due to the risk of poverty and the reduction of women’s years of “good health” in relation to their life expectancy.

In Europe

On the other hand, according to a McKinsey report, the European Union’s GDP could increase by as much as 600 billion by 2027 if the female share of technology jobs were to double by 2027. Currently, women occupy only 22% of jobs. technological positions in companies. The study ‘Women in technology: the best bet to solve the talent shortage in Europe’ highlights that in the most demanded positions -those related to DevOps and the cloud- barely have 8% of women.

The presence of women in technology companies or companies adjacent to the technology sector is 37%, while the figure decreases notably in semiconductor companies (24%) and is higher in the field of social networks (50%) and the electronic commerce (46%), these areas being the only ones in which there is parity.

For Gloria Macías-Lizaso, a partner at McKinsey, “the technological talent gap can put Europe and its businesses at risk.” 77% of executives view the skills gap between men and women as “an obstacle to driving digital transformation.” A gap that is seen from the studies. The average in the EU of women graduated in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM studies) is 32%, with Spain being the country with the lowest female rate in the EU (13%).

The consultancy maintains that Europe could increase its female technological talent by more than 1.6 million and achieve that women represent 40% by 2027 by acting on four fundamental pillars: redistribution, reformulation, talent retention and redimension, in addition to facilitating reconciliation familiar.

McKinsey analysis indicates that more than 13 million European women between the ages of 25 and 54 are out of the labor market (18.5% of the total female population) and almost half point to family responsibilities as the main reason for which they cannot work.

«Assuming that the success rates of the reintegration of women into the technological labor market are between 15% and 20%, offering reconciliation policies such as a childcare service and family support at work, between 140,000 and 200,000 additional technological talents”, says Macías-Lizaso.