"Gender Parity Could Add $12 Trillion to Global GDP in 2025"

McKinsey Global Institute's Gender Parity Score (1.00 = gender parity)

Research from a recent McKinsey & Co. post,

Globally, women spend thrice the amount of time as men on unpaid care work—an economic contribution conservatively worth $10 trillion, or 13 percent of global GDP, for which they are not compensated or recognized. Turning to work that is paid and measured, women generate about 37 percent of the world’s GDP, despite being about half of the world’s total population. At current rates of progress in women rising to the C-suite, it will take more than 100 years to bridge the gender gap in the upper reaches of US corporations.

Gender gaps in work are symptoms of deeper gender gaps in society and only serve to exacerbate them. Examples of such disparities abound. About 195 million fewer adult women than men are literate. Around 190 million fewer women than men have a bank account. For every 100 men, there are only 22 women in ministerial and parliamentary positions. An estimated 36 million girls marry between the ages of 15 and 19, stunting their educational and economic potential. About 30 percent of women around the world have been victims of violence from an intimate partner. Research by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) in 2015 found that 40 of the 95 countries analyzed have high or extremely high levels of gender inequality on at least half of 15 indicators, both economic and social.

​Narrowing gender gaps in work and in society would give the world economy a significant boost. MGI’s research suggests that, in a scenario in which every country matched the fastest progress toward gender parity made within its region, $12 trillion could be added to global GDP in 2025.

​To achieve the $12 trillion GDP potential identified and to make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, spending on five priority areas—education, family planning, maternal mortality, digital inclusion, and unpaid care work—needs to rise by $1.5 trillion to $2.0 trillion between now and 2025.