Box of delight

Editor’s note: Today’s guest post, published in honor of International Women’s Day, is by Susan Spilka, and is based on presentations at a recent Society for Scholarly Publishing webinar, which she moderated. One of the co-founders of the Workplace Equity Project, Susan was Corporate Communications at Wiley for two decades, and was the first CHORUS Communications & Marketing Director. She now provides strategic communications, public relations, business development, and research services for scholarly publishers and technology services.

A year ago, with the #MeToo movement in full steam, it seemed like the world might be at a tipping point with regard to gender bias issues. Yet McKinsey & Company’s Women in the Workplace 2018 report, the latest in their longitudinal study of the state of women in US workplaces, confirms that this optimism was premature. Sadly, their data not only shows a lack of progress, it demonstrates some backsliding. Last year, 56% of the respondents said their employers prioritized diversity. This year, this number had dropped to 45%. It’s hard not to pick up on the backlash these days.

As we approach International Women’s Day, you are likely to hear how far we’ve come to advance opportunities for women. While there are encouraging statistics, such as a narrowing of the gap in educational attendance between boys and girls, new studies show that measuring just one narrow indicator of girls’ education, namely school attendance, misses some underlying problems. Girls are still being held back disproportionately by low-quality schools and a lack of skills relevant for future employment.  The gender gap in the global workforce is also substantial, with only 49% of women participating in the workforce globally versus 75% of men.  The impact of these large gender gaps can rob countries of human potential. The World Bank estimates that the loss in human capital wealth from the under-education of girls to be between $15 trillion and $30 trillion annually.