Ongoing work

Important steps have already been taken in OECD countries to combat gender inequality but significant disparities remain in educational and occupational choices. The OECD Gender Initiative monitors the progress made on gender equality, through data and analysis, and provides best practices for achieving greater equality (see our flyer). Our work includes the following areas:

Education

Education at a Glance 2022 contains a wide range of indicators on gender differences in education, including data on attainment, entry, graduation, and employment and earnings, disaggregating them on the basis of gender (along with several other characteristics)
A series of In-focus briefs on gender was published in 2022 and more are planned for 2023:
- Why is the gender ratio of teachers imbalanced? (2022) shows that women are strongly over-represented among primary and secondary teachers, analyses key causes and explores potential solutions
- How do girls and boys feel when developing creativity and critical thinking? Lessons for gender equity (2022) highlights differences between the emotions reported by male and female secondary students in a project about fostering creativity and critical thinking
- Gender stereotypes in education, Policies and practices to address gender stereotyping across OECD education systems (2022) provides an overview of gender stereotyping in education, with some illustrations of policies and practices in place across OECD countries
Gender, Education and Skills: The persistence of gender gaps in education and skills (2023) analyses progress towards gender equality in education, focusing on gender differences in reading, mathematics and science; why high-performing girls invest less than high-performing boys in mathematics and science skills; and gender differences in career choices
Jointly with the World Bank, the OECD is co-producing a short report on “Skills in Ibero-America – Insights from PIAAC on gender differences”, analysing the difference in skills by gender in the Latin American countries participating in PIAAC. Publication is expected in May 2023
A report on “Gender career choices with focus on gender and STEM careers” is forthcoming
The 2023 Skills Outlook on Recovery and Resilience by the Centre for Skills is forthcoming in September 2023. Preliminary evidence highlights gender differences in skills that are key for sustainable and inclusive economic growth - including health literacy, environmental sustainability competence and skills to navigate and understand digital information
Gender differences are a challenge in vocational education and training (VET) systems. Country reports, e.g. Strengthening Apprenticeship in Scotland, United Kingdom (2022), highlight gender differences in VET participation. Ongoing work on the future of VET discusses policies to break gender stereotypes (forthcoming under OECD Reviews of Vocational Education and Training)
The 2022 report Pathways to Professions - Understanding Higher Vocational and Professional Tertiary Education Systems also highlights gender differences in participation in higher vocational or professional tertiary education programmes
The Centre for Skills is examining gender differences in key life skills, such as swimming, and the implication such differences have for labour market participation, health and safety as well as personal fulfilment and well-being. In this framework, it published Swimming skills around the world in November 2022
A project on cybersecurity education and training programmes will discuss how to encourage female learners to enrol in this field. A first report on England, United Kingdom will be published in March 2023 (under OECD Skills Studies), followed by reports on Colombia and France in July and December 2023, respectively
The International VET assessment (PISA-VET) initiative, currently under development, promotes VET and to break gender stereotypes in VET and the selected occupational areas. It focuses on occupational areas selected so that male and female learners are represented roughly equally: car mechatronics, electrician, business and administration, healthcare, and tourism and hospitality
The Centre for Skills is cooperating with the Joint Research Centre at the European Commission on gender differences in environmental sustainability competence. Two working papers have been published in 2022 on Young people’s environmental sustainability competence and on The environmental sustainability competence toolbox
Recent Economics Departments (ECO)’s work on South Africa suggests that the local shortage in university seats is hurting disproportionally women and black citizens, who benefit the most from tertiary education. The gender differences in skills accumulation were also analysed for Korea.

Employment and work-life balance

The OECD Family Database, managed by OECD’s Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELS), provides a wealth of gender-relevant data on families, children, employment and work-life balance, including on the Distribution of working hours for couples with children and policy supports such as Parental leave systems
The 2022 Report on the Implementation of the OECD Gender Recommendations, welcomed at OECD’s 2022 Ministerial Council Meeting, highlights progress and challenges in the implementation of the 2013 Recommendation on Gender Equality in Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship [OECD/LEGAL/0398] and the 2015 Recommendation on Gender Equality in Public Life [OECD/LEGAL/0418]
The horizontal report Joining Forces for Gender Equality: What is Holding us Back? analyses developments and policies for gender equality in education, employment, entrepreneurship and public life, and extends the perspective on gender equality to other areas, such as the environment, nuclear energy, trade and transport
Economics Departments (ECO)’s Economic Country Surveys mainstream gender equality. The 2022-23 surveys for Belgium, Colombia, Estonia, Finland, Korea, Latvia, Slovak Republic, Sweden, and Switzerland covered challenges for working women and mothers, and employment gender gaps. The 2022 survey of Mexico, and a related paper, discussed gender gaps in financial access
The special challenges facing women in labour markets and business sectors have been highlighted in 2022 ECO working papers on Austria, Belgium, Malaysia, and Tunisia. The risk that the COVID-19 crisis could determine a further widening of the gender pay gap received attention in a 2022 study on Switzerland
ELS released the G7 Dashboard on Gender Gaps 2023 as released in June 2023 by the Japanese G7 Presidency - a revised version of G7 Dashboard on Gender Gaps 2022 as released in June 2022 by the German G7 Presidency
The OECD is working with the G7 Presidency on the development of an implementation report to monitor progress towards gender equality within the G7 and the implementation of G7 Leaders’ commitments in the field of gender equality
In 2022, the OECD supported by the US government developed new indicators on Gender in the areas of teleworking; the digital gender divide; the use of parental leave; and the impact of tax/benefit systems
The Trade in Employment database includes indicators of employment in Global Value Chains by characteristic (including gender), with selected results published on OECD.STAT
The OECD has worked with DG Reform of the European Commission and the Hungarian authorities on reducing gender gaps in employment in Hungary. The report Reducing the Gender Employment Gap in Hungary, focusing on supporting the labour market participation of mothers of young children, was published in 2022
The Economic Case for More Gender Equality in Estonia (2022) considers gender gaps in labour market outcomes in Estonia and relevant policies to close them (family supports, strengthening women’s bargaining positions, combating gender-based discrimination, changing gender norms) and explores potential economic gains of greater gender equality under different scenarios
The OECD, ILO and UN Women established the Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC). EPIC shares publications and tools – including a legal database, and organises events, workshops and exchanges towards achieving SDG target 8.5 on equal pay between men and women for work of equal value
An analysis of The Role of Firms in the Gender Wage Gap in Germany (2022) contributes to a better understanding of the gender wage gap in Germany and in other selected countries, and puts forward key elements of a policy package to reduce gender pay gaps
Same skills, different pay – Tackling gender inequalities at firm level, released in November 2022, presents stylised facts on the gender pay gap and an overview of policies to reduce it
ELS is updating the 2021 report Pay Transparency Tools to Close the Gender Wage Gap, illustrating countries’ innovative approaches to pay reporting and equal pay auditing. This report Reporting Gender Pay Gaps in OECD Countries - Guidance for Pay Transparency Implementation, Monitoring and Reform was launched in June 2023. A web-based Pay Transparency Toolkit will follow ublication:
Going for Growth uses quantitative and qualitative insights to identify the five top structural reform priorities to boost medium-term economic growth in an inclusive and sustainable way. It has been paying growing attention to gender inequalities, especially in the labour markets. A new edition will be released in May 2023
The OECD Database on Gender gaps in Latin America and the Caribbean presents data for all countries in Latin America. In 2022, the OECD launched Gender Equality in Peru - Towards a Better Sharing of Paid and Unpaid Work. Reports on gender equality in Colombia and Costa Rica and the regional report are forthcoming
Labour markets transitions through the looking glass (2022) documents the presence of gender gaps in labour transitions and discusses the impact of policies on gender gaps in hirings
The OECD’s Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) with the IDB and UNESCO published The Effects of AI on Women’s Work (2022), introducing issues related to gender and artificial intelligence (AI) following the major stages of the workforce lifecycle (job requirements, hiring, career progression and up-skilling within the workplace)
In the framework of the G20, the OECD continued to support discussions on gender equality by delivering the annual Women at Work report, Women at Work in G20 countries: Progress and policy action in 2021, providing an update on progress towards the “25x25” Brisbane gender target
Among the potential drivers of the post-COVI-19 labour market shortages, a paper by ECO on The post-COVID-19 rise in labour shortages considers the changes in female labour force participation and assesses the empirical evidence of a she-cession across OECD countries
ELS is undertaking Phase III of the OECD work on LGBTI+ inclusion, including:

An update and extension of Over the Rainbow? The Road to LGBTI Inclusion, expected in Spring/Summer 2024.
A country review series on LGBTI+ inclusion. The first volume The Road to LGBTI+ Inclusion in Germany: Progress at the Federal and Länder Levels, published in February 2023, explores legal and policy progress towards LGBTI+ equality in Germany at the national level and in each of the 16 Bundesländer.
An overview of school-based policies in OECD countries to combat homo- and transphobia and an impact evaluation of some of these policies, based on a randomised control trial (RCT) in France, to published in Spring/Summer 2024. The results of the RCT will be released in June 2023.
An assessment of the economic returns of strengthening LGBTI+ inclusion in the labour market, based on country representative microdata. The first study, devoted to the US, will be published late 2023/early 2024.

Entrepreneurship

In 2022, the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE) started a pilot of data collection on SME financing disaggregated by gender of the principal owner under the framework of the Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs: An OECD Scoreboard. Data collection efforts will continue in 2023, by expanding country coverage
The 2022 Updated G20/OECD High-Level Principles on SME Financing contain stronger emphasis on women entrepreneurs’ access to finance and the need to strengthen the evidence base in this area
New content is regularly added to the OECD/EU Better Entrepreneurship Policy Tool, which supports policy makers in the design and implementation of tailored entrepreneurship schemes for women and other target groups (e.g. youth, migrants and the unemployed), and social entrepreneurship support
The Future of Business Survey (FOBS), a collaboration between Facebook, the OECD, and the World Bank, provides timely data on SMEs disaggregated by gender and by age of business owners/managers, in addition to breakdowns by the size, economic activities and age of businesses
A new report on “Advancing gender equality through the social economy” will be published on 20 March 2022. It explores how the social economy is advancing gender equality through employment. It will also draw lessons learned from the social economy for the wider economy
The Committee for Industry, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) is conducting a project on job quality within the DynEmp project to analyse employment opportunities and job quality across different groups of workers, including women in start-ups
The Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC) and its Water Governance Initiative will assess the state of play, bottlenecks and enabling factors for women in water decision-making, and the impact of women’s involvement in water governance. Discussions will happen at the UN 2023 Water Decade Conference (March 2023, New York City)
CFE is co-operating with the Secretariat of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) to develop and launch a global Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code (WE Finance Code) in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Public governance

The 2022 Report on the Implementation of the OECD Gender Recommendations, welcomed at OECD’s 2022 Ministerial Council Meeting, highlights progress and challenges in the implementation of the 2013 Recommendation on Gender Equality in Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship [OECD/LEGAL/0398] and the 2015 Recommendation on Gender Equality in Public Life [OECD/LEGAL/0418]
OECD’s Directorate for Public Governance (GOV) organised a Symposium on the theme of Strengthening Government Capacities for Gender-sensitive Data and Evidence for policymaking, jointly with different OECD directorates (CTP, DCD, ELS, ENV, PAC, SDD, TAD and WISE) in June 2022
The 2018 Toolkit on Mainstreaming and Implementing Gender Equality is being updated to further support countries in implementing the OECD Recommendation on Gender Equality in Public Life. The updated toolkit, to be launched in 2023, includes new concepts, expanded work areas (e.g. budgeting, public procurement, infrastructure) and latest good practices.
2022 work on Gender Budgeting included preliminary analysis of the OECD’s 2022 Survey on Gender Budgeting publication of reports on: Gender Budgeting – The Economic and Fiscal Rationale and Gender Perspectives in Spending Review. The Survey results as well as OECD Best Practices for Gender Budgeting will be published in 2023
GOV regularly undertakes gender mainstreaming and governance country reviews, including in specialised areas such as gender budgeting and integrating gender lens in disaster management, infrastructure, public procurement, etc. In 2023, reports relating to on-going country review in Australia, Colombia, and the Czech Republic will be launched
At the Ministerial Meeting of the OECD Public Governance Committee (PGC) on Building Trust and Reinforcing Democracy in November 2022, OECD Ministers adopted an Action Plan on Gender Equality outlining policies to remove barriers to women’s and girls’ full, equal and meaningful participation in democracies and leadership positions
GOV organised a session on Addressing Barriers to Women’s Democratic Representation for the Public Governance Committee’s Global Forum on Building Trust and Reinforcing Democracy in 2022. It discussed barriers to women’s engagement in public life, including gender-based disinformation and cyber violence, and proposed ways and instruments to overcome them
As part of the Public Procurement and Responsible Business Conduct (RBC( programme, the policy brief Integrating responsible business conduct in public procurement supply chains: Economic benefits to governments (2022) focuses on the economic benefits of RBC in public procurement supply chains, gender equality and mainstreaming, and gender-disaggregated data on RBC
The Report Pilot on Integrating OECD Due Diligence into Public Procurement in the Garment Sector (2022) gives a summary of the gender related discussions and lessons learned.

Taxation

Released in February 2022, Tax Policy and Gender Equality: A Stocktake of Country Approaches analyses country priorities for tax policy and gender, explicit and implicit biases, policy developments, data availability, and priorities for future work in 43 countries from the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework
A paper on Taxation of Part-Time Work in the OECD (2022) presents new calculations of the effective tax rates on part-time work including those for male and female part-time workers and for different household types, based on the OECD’s well-established Taxing Wages models
The programme for Women leaders in tax transparency, launched by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes and now in its second edition, aims to build a network of women officials championing tax transparency in tax administrations, via a series of mentorship and leadership modules
Taxing Wages includes annual modelling of effective tax rates on labour income for different household types provides insights on the tax system incentives for second earners’ labour market participation. Taxing Wages 2022 - Impact of COVID-19 on the Tax Wedge in OECD Countries was released in April 2022
A 2022 March on Gender Event on Breaking the tax bias: Promoting gender equality in taxation launched the Tax Policy and Gender Equality report and the working paper on Taxation of Part-Time Work in the OECD, raising awareness of these issues and highlighting the need for further work and action
With the Government of Italy, the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (CTPA) organised the Ministerial panel discussion ‘The Impact of Tax and Transfer Systems on Gender Equality’ as a side event to the OECD 2022 Ministerial Council Meeting, exploring how tax and transfer systems can support gender equality
Learn about the OECD Forum on Tax Administration's Gender Balance Network (GBN), aimed to help improve the gender balance across the FTA members by leveraging the more balanced position that already exists in some administrations, and identifying effective policies and practices to promote gender equality.

OECD Regional Initiatives on Governance and Competitiveness

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the MENA-OECD Initiative on Governance and Competitiveness for Development supports women’s political and economic empowerment and involves specific gender projects, including the Country Programmes for Morocco (2021-23) and Egypt (2022-24), focusing on data, gender mainstreaming, and women’s participation in public life
A meeting of the MENA-OECD Platform on Gender Mainstreaming, Governance and Leadership took place in 2022 to discuss how to strengthen institutions, regulatory frameworks and coordination capacities to prevent, address and eliminate violence against women in MENA countries. An OECD paper on the same theme will be published in 2023
The regional dialogues organised by the MENA-OECD Women’s Economic Empowerment Forum (WEEF) focused on women’s economic empowerment and digitalisation. A forthcoming report will highlight challenges and solutions for women and girls’ digital skills, women’s entrepreneurship in the digital sector and how digitalisation can support women’s employment in the MENA region
The SME Policy Index: Western Balkans and Turkey 2022 includes a gender focus, notably a section on women entrepreneurship, based on qualitative assessments, official statistics and survey data available on this subject. The study on Labour Migration in the Western Balkans (2022) puts an emphasis on gender specific trends
The SME Policy Index: Eastern Partner Countries, expected in 2023, includes a substantial gender focus
Ongoing analytical work on the impact of Russia's war in Ukraine on the wider Eurasia region considers gender impacts
A publication on “Jobs, women and youth in West Africa” is forthcoming.

Competition, Corporate Governance and Investment

In 2022, the OECD Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs (DAF) worked on Gender Inclusive Competition Policy. Evidence from seven projects supported the development of a Toolkit (currently under approval) for competition authorities on how to build a gender inclusive competition policy and include gender considerations in antitrust enforcement
Within the Gender Inclusive Competition Policy project, DAF is developing guidance for the Canadian Competition Bureau and any other interested competition authorities on how to build a gender inclusive competition policy and include gender considerations in enforcement. The Toolkit for Canada was transformed into a best practice for wider adoption
The OECD reviews gender diversity on boards and in senior corporate management to monitor progress in how countries are addressing recommendations on this topic under the G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance and the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises
Within the Corporate Governance Committee’s review of the G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance, DAF published Enhancing gender diversity on boards and in senior management of listed companies. Covering 50 jurisdictions, the paper takes stock of progress and remaining gaps and looks at policies and practices to strengthen gender diversity
The OECD Corporate Governance Factbook includes a section with comparative data across all OECD and G20 members, tracking progress in policies and practices supporting women’s participation on corporate boards and in senior management. The 2023 Factbook will update the data and include further data on diversity
The OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct offers practical guidance to companies on how to integrate a gender perspective into the due diligence process, and helps them consider how real or potential adverse impacts of their operations may differ or may be specific to women
The OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector and the OECD-FAO Guidance for Responsible Agricultural Supply Chains provide practical frameworks and recommendations to help companies carry out gender sensitive due diligence
Under the ongoing OECD FDI Qualities initiative, the OECD FDI Qualities Indicators assess the contribution of foreign direct investment (FDI) to gender equality in OECD and non-OECD countries. The FDI Qualities Policy Toolkit provides policy guidance on how to improve the impact of FDI on women in host countries
The OECD Council Recommendation on FDI Qualities, the first government-backed instrument on how to improve the positive contribution of international investment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 5, was adopted at the 2022 OECD Council at the Ministerial Level (MCM)
The FDI Qualities Indicators and Policy Toolkit have been implemented in several regional and country-level studies, including an Investment Policy Review (IPR) conducted in Morocco (forthcoming), as well as FDI Qualities Reviews for Jordan (2022), Chile (forthcoming), Canada (forthcoming) and Austria (forthcoming)
Other workstreams of the Investment Division have also integrated a gender equality dimension, i.e. the Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) work with, for example, a survey on IPA prioritisation and monitoring and evaluation to examine the extent to which IPAs prioritise specific investments that can support sustainability goals, including gender equality
The 2021 Anti-Bribery Recommendation, complementing the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, recognises the need to improve the Working Group on Bribery’ understanding of the linkages between gender and corruption, including bribery of foreign public officials, how corruption can affect genders differently, and the importance of promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Development

The GENDERNET - OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Network on Gender Equality - is the international forum for gender experts from DAC development co-operation agencies and foreign ministries. Its “GENDERNET plus” format supports exchanges with representatives from non-DAC countries, multilateral organisations, development banks, DFIs, civil society and the private sector
The Development Co-operation Directorate (DCD) conducts data and policy analysis on Development finance for gender equality and women’s empowerment: the OECD publishes annual data and analysis on financing in support of gender equality and women’s empowerment from DAC donors and other non-DAC providers
Guidance on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in development co-operation (2022) addresses fundamentals for development partners to be effective: leadership and policy framework, planning and design, implementation and programming, finance for gender equality and women’s empowerment, results monitoring and evaluation, and gender equality delivery
The OECD DAC Recommendation on Ending Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Harassment (SEAH) in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance supports institutional and collective action on SEAH prevention and response. A Toolkit supporting implementation and learning is forthcoming; the DAC Reference Group on Ending SEAH continues as a multi-stakeholder venue for exchange
Analysis of DAC members’ policies in support of women’s economic empowerment (2022) examines DAC members’ efforts to advance women’s economic empowerment within their development co-operation and gender equality policies
Aid in Support of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment – Donor charts (2023) shows statistics based on DAC Members’ reporting on the Gender Equality Policy Marker
ODA for climate, biodiversity and gender equality: A snapshot (2022) focuses on how official development assistance (ODA) can be leveraged to support gender-responsive climate action
Blended finance for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls (2022) analyses the role of blended finance on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, and shows how it can help deliver the Sustainable Development Goals
Financing for gender equality in the Sahel and West Africa (2022) highlights the current financing for the gender equality landscape in the region
The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) is the OECD Development Centre (DEV)’s flagship programme on gender equality and women and girls’ empowerment. The new website and the Gender Institutions and Development Database (GID-DB) was released in March 2023 and the SIGI 2023 Global Report in July 2023
The SIGI Country Study for Tanzania (2022) provides a new evidence base to improve the rights and well-being of women and girls in Tanzania and promote gender equality through the elimination of discrimination in social institutions
The SIGI Country Study for Côte d’Ivoire (2022) exploits new quantitative and qualitative data on social norms and practices to analyse how discriminatory social institutions are at the heart of inequalities between Ivorian men and women, particularly in education and economic empowerment
DEV will prepare a SIGI MENA assessment containing detailed country profiles of 19 countries of the MENA region, based on the data collected for the SIGI 2023 in the MENA region and on participatory workshops organised in four countries of the region 2023
DEV will prepare a SIGI 2023 Regional Report for Southeast Asia that will build on the data collected for the SIGI 2023 and will provide a deep-dive analysis of and recommendations for the specific challenges faced by the region
Women around the world are facing unprecedented levels of targeted political violence, including in West Africa. Political violence targeting women in the Sahel and West Africa, published in 2022 by OECD’s Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat (SWAC), tracks how women are targeted, and who is targeting women
PARIS21 strengthens the gender data ecosystems in low and middle income countries to equip them to innovate and improve the reporting on SDGs and other development goals: see latest country examples
Integrating a gender perspective in statistical planning and communication is central to PARIS21’s support to national statistical offices. This support takes place during the design of National Strategies for the Development of Statistics (NSDS gender module), during training on communicating gender data and data planning (e.g. ADAPT gender module)
In March 2023, PARIS21 published Counting on Gender Data, which summarises its 3-year partnership with UN Women’s “Women Count” programme on supporting low- and middle-income countries in integrating gender data in their national statistical systems
PARIS21 is the secretariat of the Gender Data Network (GDN) - a joint initiative between PARIS21, Data2X, UNECA, and Open Data Watch which supports better gender data production, communication and use. In November 2022, the GDN held an in-person meeting as part of the African Gender Statistics Workshop in Nairobi
PARIS21’s online platform Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data presents patterns of financing for data and statistics, including for gender data. It helps countries and development partners identify funding opportunities, bring projects to scale and connect to new partners. A webinar on gender data financing took place in February 2023
PARIS21 monitors the funding for statistics through its annual Partner Report on Support to Statistics (PRESS). The 2022 edition of PRESS has showed that investments in gender data declined even as overall funding for gender equality increased
In 2023, PARIS21 supports the governments and statistics offices in Kenya, Madagascar, Maldives and Rwanda to analyse the patterns of gender data use by policymakers. Follow PARIS21 on Twitter and LinkedIn
SWAC’s new podcast series “Women leading change” tells the stories of women as civil society actors, activists, leaders, humanitarian workers, youth representatives and entrepreneurs in West Africa. It gathers examples of their outstanding work within local communities as well as their contributions to advancing gender equality and positive change
SWAC’s data platform, MAPTA, provides data on political violence targeting women in West Africa over the past 20 years. This data is critical to providing a better understanding of the nature and severity of violence against women and an important step to informing more gender-focused responses to conflict
“Maps & Facts: Gender-sensitive tools for food crisis prevention and management”, forthcoming in March 2023, aims for more balanced representation of women and men in data collection; specific interventions against gender-based violence; and priority targeting of women heads of households, internally displaced women and elderly women, among others.

Financial Education and Financial Consumer Protection

The OECD Recommendation on Financial Literacy adopted by the OECD Council during the 2020 OECD Ministerial Council Meeting encourages Adherents to take into account the needs of women in developing their financial literacy policies and programmes
The Recommendation on the G20/OECD High-Level Principles on Financial Consumer Protection was updated in 2022 to ensure it reflects best practices, is forward-looking, and enhances protections for consumers experiencing vulnerability, which may arise from factors such as gender. The Principles are the leading international standard for financial consumer protection frameworks
The report Financial literacy, financial awareness, digitalisation and MSMEs in South East Europe (forthcoming March 2023) shows limited gender differences in the financial literacy and financial account holding of Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSME) owners and managers in South East Europe
The OECD/INFE 2023 International Survey of Adult Financial Literacy (publication expected in November 2023) will describe gender differences in financial literacy, financial resilience and financial well-being in about 30 countries around the world.

Health

Health indicators disaggregated by gender are available on the OECD Gender Data Portal
Health at a Glance: Europe 2022 showed that while women live five years more than men on average across EU and OECD countries, the gender gap in healthy life years is much smaller, as women tend to spend a greater proportion of their lives with health issues and activity limitations
There are also important gender gaps in risk factors to health: for example, smoking rates continue to be much higher among men, as highlighted in Health at a Glance: Asia/Pacific, released in 2022
The New Approaches to Economic Challenges (NAEC) initiative analysed gender equality and women's health in the 2022 report A Systemic Recovery, outlining gender differences in outcomes for brain health disorders across the lifespan, with strikingly negative outcomes for women
As part of the 2022 OECD March on Gender initiative, a seminar on Innovations to Address Women’s Brain Health Inequalities looked into differences in neurological outcomes between men and women, supported by the Neuroscience-inspired Policy Initiative (NIPI)
The NIPI has established a working group of gender experts, neuroscientists and medical professionals to look at gender differences in brain health outcomes. In 2022, the group published a piece on Violence Against Women and Acquired Brain Injuries on Psychiatric Times.

Digital Transformation, Technology and Science

Digital transformation provides avenues for women and girls’ empowerment, contributing to gender equality. Deepening the evidence base on women’s role in the digital transformation is essential for developing better policies to help meet this objective. The OECD’s Going Digital Toolkit presents the gender dimension across a number of key indicators
The OECD Going Digital Measurement Roadmap is an important tool to align countries’ priority areas for measuring digital transformation using common methodologies and approaches, It was amended in 2022 to add a specific “action” to Expand the collection and accessibility of gender statistics
The OECD.AI Policy Observatory includes data and trends on gender in artificial intelligence (AI) research since 2010, on AI skills penetration and on software development
The OECD’s Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) with the IDB and UNESCO published The Effects of AI on Women’s Work (2022), introducing issues related to gender and AI following the major stages of the workforce lifecycle (job requirements, hiring, career progression and up-skilling within the workplace)
The STIP Compass survey includes questions on policy initiatives to incorporate gender specificities in research content and to promote the participation of women and other under-represented groups in research and innovation activities, and in March 2022, launched a custom navigation for STI Gender indicators in the OECD STI.Scoreboard platform
The Digital Economy Outlook flagship publication (next edition in 2024) will continue to include evidence and analysis on gender issues
The Committee on Consumer Policy (CCP) conducted a consumer survey (2022) to measure financial personal consumer detriment associated with e-commerce, enabling the collection of gender information. Another recent CCP report on dark commercial patterns (2022) and forthcoming work on consumer vulnerability (2023) investigate systematic gender bias and discrimination in algorithms
The Committee for Science and Technology Policy Global Science Forum includes a gender perspective in its work on the research workforce of the future, including a project on “The research workforce of the future: promoting diversity and inclusion”.

Environment

Two ENV indicators have been identified and are being populated with data disaggregated by gender: mortality rates from air pollution; and development of green technologies, based on patenting activity. Work has started to develop an indicator of exposure to environmental risks but lack of harmonised data is a major obstacle
The OECD, with UNDP and UN WOMEN, have developed a COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker with a Green Lens. This tracker builds on the UN COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker and the OECD Green Recovery Database, and identifies green and gender-sensitive measures through the gender-environment nexus
A report on Empowering women in the transition towards green growth in Greece, focusing on the gender-environment nexus in the Greek policy framework, was launched in July 2022
The working paper Women’s leadership in environmental action (2022) reviews evidence on women’s environmental leadership in public governance, environmentally-sensitive industries, and civil society, and its impact on environmental outcomes in these sectors. It also identifies potential policy actions as well as areas for further data collection and research
Supporting Women's Empowerment through Green Policies and Finance (2022) examines linkages and synergies between these two policy agendas and explores the role of green policies, finance and infrastructure in supporting women’s empowerment and gender equality. The policy paper was discussed at the 2022 OECD Forum on Green Finance and Investment
A section on gender diversity and women’s empowerment will be included in the upcoming Clean Energy Finance and Investment Mobilisation Policy Review for Egypt planned to be completed for mid-2023
Over the course of 2023, the OECD Clean Energy Finance and Investment Mobilisation Programme (CEFIM) and the Indonesian Financial Services Authority (OJK) will host a series of technical Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) to assist OJK’s efforts to integrate gender in the Indonesian sustainable finance agenda
All upcoming Environmental Performance and Green Growth Policy Reviews will include a gender dimension, examining aspects such as the differentiated exposure to environmental risks by gender, the contribution of gender equality to the low-carbon transition and the circular economy and the opportunities for women’s economic empowerment created by green growth
A gender dimension will be included in analysis of climate change impacts and policies under the OECD International Programme for Action on Climate (IPAC). Work is planned to develop country case studies on socio-demographic exposure to climate-related hazards.

Transport

The International Transport Forum (ITF)’s Gender Analysis Toolkit for Transport Policies (2022) provides guidance to ITF member countries and other stakeholders on how to conduct gender analysis for transport policies. The ITF is currently developing a road map to implement the Toolkit across all ITF projects as relevant
Joint ITF and FIA Foundation report on the Role of Gender Equality in Decarbonising the Transport Sector (2022) examines the linkages between gender equality, transport and climate change and provides guiding principles with specific actions to help countries and companies align their gender equality and decarbonising transport goals by 2050
The 8th edition of the ITF Annual Consultation on Gender and Transport, an annual forum for ITF stakeholders for sharing best practices, was held to explore the gender aspect of the 2023 Summit on Transport Enabling Sustainable Economies, 24-26 May 2023 in Leipzig, Germany
The Global Aviation Gender Summit will take place on 5-7 July 2023, Madrid, Spain. It is intended to be a global gathering for gender equality convened by ICAO and co-hosted by the government of Spain, in partnership with European Commission, the ILO, UN Women, and the ITF
ITF’s gender-specific accessibility study in Ghana, in collaboration with Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC) at the OECD (forthcoming in 2023)
ITF’s Accessibility assessment of the Seoul Capital Area through an equity lens is forthcoming in 2023

For more information please consult the website: ITF Work on Gender in Transport.

Energy

In 2022, the International Energy Agency (IEA) launched a Gender and Energy Data explorer, including indicators on gender gaps in the energy sector in employment, wages, senior management, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Data have unprecedented granularity, thanks to collaborations with OECD Directorates and the European Patent Office
In 2022, there has been dedicated text or chapters on gender diversity in IEA’s country reviews on Canada, Poland, Hungary, and Italy (forthcoming) as well as the Africa Energy Outlook, World Energy Employment Report, CEM-EPI report on Skills Development and Inclusivity for Clean Energy Transitions, and Coal Net-Zero Emissions Report
Based on matched employer-employee data collected as part of the OECD LinkEED project, the IEA published an article on understanding gender gaps in wages, employment and career trajectories in the energy sector in August 2022
The IEA serves as the coordinator for the Equality in Energy Transitions initiative’s (formerly C3E International) Work Stream 1 on Data Collection, Knowledge Building, and Policies. The initiative operates under both the Clean Energy Ministerial and the IEA’s Technology Collaboration Programme
Building on results from a gender policy questionnaire sent to energy ministries in IEA member countries in 2021, the IEA and the Equality in Energy Transitions initiative are developing a policy-makers’ manual for gender mainstreaming in energy ministries, mapping challenges and providing policy recommendations for advancing gender balance and diversity
The IEA “Careers in Energy” speaker series is being relaunched to invite women who work in the energy field to speak about their career choices and challenges
The IEA’s Gender Diversity Initiative aims to support member governments on gender policies and data. The IEA Gender Advisory Council, consisting of senior officials from IEA member countries, provides guidance for both the IEA Secretariat and member governments in their gender mainstreaming practices
In March 2022, the IEA Ministerial meeting renewed the mandate to promote gender equality and diversity across the energy sector, and within the IEA, including through improved data, the IEA Gender Advisory Council, and in cooperation with C3E International

The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) established a task group on improving gender balance in the sector with representatives from ministries, regulators, the nuclear industry, and technical support organisations of NEA member countries. The group focuses on data; policy to enhance the contribution of diverse women; and communications and education activities
The 2023 report on the representation of women in the nuclear sector, containing the first publicly-available international data on women working in the sector, was based on a survey of over 8,000 women working in the field in 32 countries and human resources data from 96 organisations in 17 countries
Based on the data collected, the task group developed a policy framework focused around three pillars and underpinned by data: ‘Attract, Retain and Advance + Data’. The task group has also begun initial planning on practical tools to support countries to implement the policy recommendations
The Agency co-operates with national organisations to hold mentoring workshops for adolescent girls to encourage the pursuit of STEM careers, including in the nuclear sector. In 2022, mentoring events were held with students in France, Japan, Romania, and Spain, with further workshops in 2023 in Canada and the United Kingdom
The Global Forum on Nuclear Education, Science, Technology and Policy, an NEA global initiative of academic institutions for co-operation to address emerging issues in the nuclear sector, established a working group on achieving gender balance
Under the auspices of the Global Forum, the NEA hosted its third annual Global Nuclear Science and Engineering Commencement on 29 June 2022 to celebrate and recognise the accomplishments of the graduating classes of 2022 within the nuclear science and technology fields
An annual workshop for female graduate students preparing for careers in nuclear science will be launched at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in September 2023 to provide career development and leadership skills. The group is also developing data-driven inclusion guidelines for universities
The Nuclear Education, Skills and Technology Framework (NEST), a multi-national partnership nurturing the next generation of nuclear experts through hands-on training in international research projects, has developed a gender balance strategy. 2022 activities included a workshop, a summer school and a workshop for NEST Fellows
The NEA signed a memorandum of understanding with Women in Nuclear (WiN) Global in 2022 to co-operate on various activities, including mentoring. The NEA founded a WiN chapter at the NEA and created multimedia campaigns featuring diverse female nuclear scientists and leaders to promote women’s contributions in the sector.

Well-Being

OECD’s work on well-being and the OECD Well-being Framework highlight inequalities in all well-being outcomes by gender, age and educational attainment. These statistics are included in the regular How’s Life? reports, in the How’s Life? Well-Being database on OECD.Stat, and in country profiles for all OECD members
Gender differences in well-being are mainstreamed in the WISE Centre’s work on child well-being data. The OECD Child Well-being Dashboard was launched in July 2022 at the same time as an update to the OECD Child Well-being Data Portal. Almost all data portal’s indicators can be disaggregated by sex
The OECD Better Life Index integrates information on gender inequality across its twelve domains of well-being
The OECD Time Use Database shows the average amount of time women and men spend in daily activities, with a focus on unpaid work
In January 2022, the WISE Centre published a paper on Measuring the non-financial performance of business through the well-being lens, which considers horizontal inequalities in stakeholder well-being in a transversal manner, including differences between men and women
The WISE Centre published The Short and Winding Road to 2030: Measuring Distance to the SDG Targets (2022), a new edition of the report Measuring Distance to SDGs Targets, showing how far OECD countries are from achieving targets for all 17 sustainable development goals, including Goal 5 on Gender Equality
The OECD COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard mainstreams the gender-related aspects in measuring recovery efforts consistently with a broader set of SDG indicators
Gender is an integral part of the forecasting and policy evaluation tools the WISE Centre has developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Italy. Gender-specific models ensure that findings and policy recommendations can be tailored to the needs of women and men
A two-year project on the state of discrimination in the EU and its impact on society, the economy and public finances was launched in late 2022. The project will assess how gender interacts with other legally protected characteristics to create cumulative disadvantage
The WISE Centre has led the creation of the new OECD Observatory on Social Mobility and Equal Opportunity, which aims at developing and mainstreaming evidence on social mobility, equal opportunity, and related policies. The Observatory will pay particular attention to the role of gender inequalities and discrimination
A WISE Centre project studies how people’s wider economic, social, environmental and political experiences shape their mental health and can be better considered in policy design. This also includes a look at how gender inequalities in well-being (e.g. in work-life balance) in turn affect gender differences in mental health.

Violence against Women

Many OECD governments have identified violence against women as the top gender equality issue their country faces. Yet in all countries, addressing this multifaceted issue presents serious governance and implementation challenges. Supporting Lives Free from Intimate Partner Violence (2022) presents a stocktaking of governments’ efforts to integrate service delivery to address intimate partner violence
Supporting Lives Free from Intimate Partner Violence Towards: Better Integration of Services for Victims/Survivors came out in Spring 2023 together with two policy briefs on “Integrating services to address intimate partner violence” and “When home is not a safe haven”
Governments have committed to improve SEAH prevention and response through the OECD DAC Recommendation on Ending Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, providing a framework for action. A Toolkit to support implementation is forthcoming. The DAC Reference Group on Ending SEAH continues as an important multi-stakeholder venue for learning and collective action
OECD’s Working Party on Gender Mainstreaming and Governance established its technical advisory group on tackling gender-based violence (TAG-GBV). Under the guidance of TAG-GBV, the 2022 OECD Survey on Strengthening Governance and Survivor/Victim-centric Approaches to end Gender-based Violence was launched
The Horizontal OECD Report on Eliminating Gender-Based Violence "Breaking the Cycle of Gender-based Violence: Translating Evidence into Action for Victim/Survivor-centred Governance" was launched in October 2023. This joint effort develops a comprehensive framework for holistic responses to GBV based on an assessment of gaps and promising practices of governments, legal and justice systems and service providers in their fight against GBV
“Truth Hurts”, the OECD Talk series on Preventing Violence Against Women, features practitioners addressing gender-based violence in conversation with OECD officials
The OECD is a partner in the Call to Action on Protection from Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies. This multi-stakeholder initiative aims to drive change and foster accountability in policies, systems and mechanisms, to mitigate gender-based violence risks against women and girls in settings of humanitarian crisis.

Trade

Trade, agriculture and food

OECD’s Trade and Agriculture Directorate (TAD) conducted Trade and Gender Review of New Zealand (2022), the first country report following TAD’s Framework of Analysis. The report examines the impacts of trade on women, the barriers they face to trade, and policy recommendations for New Zealand to support women in trade
Gender mainstreaming in Aid for Trade was the theme of a joint chapter with WTO in the WTO Aid for Trade Global Review (2022) examining the extent to which gender objectives were integrated in Aid for Trade programmes and providing a typology of measures that target women in trade
Further work is planned in 2023-24 on country reviews, gender-related provisions in trade agreements, women workers in supply chains and a review of data necessary to close information gaps on women in trade
A workstream on women entrepreneurs and the challenges they face when trading will be reflected in the OECD horizontal report on gender equality Joining Forces for "Gender Equality: What is Holding us Back?" and in the "SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook 2023", both upcoming in the first half of 2023

Gender and Food Systems: Overcoming evidence gaps (2022) explores gender aspects and policies that address gender inequalities in food systems using a framework developed in OECD work on trade and gender that considers women’s roles as entrepreneurs, workers and consumers
Strengthening and fostering greater opportunities for women in agriculture and food systems is a key commitment in the Declaration on Transformative Solutions for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems adopted in November 2022 by OECD Meeting of Agriculture Ministers
The OECD webinar Better Policies for Women in Food systems will take place on 18th April 2023, 16.00 CEST. Colombia’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and TAD’s Director will open the webinar. OECD policy makers will then present policy approaches and experiences in advancing gender equality in food systems.

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OECD Blog articles on gender by OECD experts and guests

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