GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE UK

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GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE UK: Meeting the challenge of the Sustainable Development Goals EDUCATION The UN’s commitment to education is sustained in the SDGs, in particular SDG 4: to ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’. Targets under SDG 4 include ‘eliminate gender disparities in education’ and equitable outcomes for girls and boys, men and women, in school and in technical, vocational and tertiary education. They include education for gender equality and the provision of safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all. ATTAINMENT AND OUTCOMES Girls in education tend to perform better than boys at all ages, to the extent that concerns have been raised by some commentators, e.g. recently by the Higher Education Policy Institute. Yet as the EHRC says, the comparatively higher academic achievement of girls and women is not resulting in fuller employment or more highly paid work. Women and girls are still limited by gender stereotyping and inequality. The large-scale EPPSE 3–16 study of 2,600 young people in England found that at age 14 and 16 boys felt more confident and more positive about themselves than girls, and boys’ academic self-concept was as high as that of girls, despite their lower actual test performance. In the Think Future study of over 20,000 undergraduate students in the UK and Ireland, most male and female students felt that they were treated equally at university, but only around 42 per cent of women were confident that their gender would have no bearing on their career progression after graduation, or on their future pay, versus around 72 per cent of men. There continues to be a gender pay gap among graduates. In the UK, almost all girls and boys have participated in education to age 14 for more than a century. This has been a right, and an obligation, in law since 1944. At tertiary level in the UK there are now more female undergraduates (56 per cent) than male undergraduates (44 per cent) (2014–15 figures), which may reflect knowledge of the added benefits of a university degree to women – a UK government report estimated the positive impact of a degree on lifetime net earnings to be 28 per cent for men but 53 per cent for women. ACCESS TO EDUCATION The global picture is one of a narrowing gender gap in primary, secondary and tertiary education, with enrolments tending to increase faster for girls and women than men and boys. 16
Participation rates in secondary education, world/UK Girls Boys 1990 2000 2013 The UK 1990 2000 2013 1990 2000 2013 The world 1990 2000 2013 1990 2000 2013 Developed countries 1990 2000 2013 1990 2000 2013 Developing countries 1999 2000 2013 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 Per cent Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2014 Note: Participation rates exceed 100 per cent due to the inclusion of over-aged and under-aged students because of early or late entrants, or grade repetition. 17
Page 1 and 2: GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWERMENT OF
Page 3 and 4: FOREWORDS At the United Nations Sus
Page 5 and 6: EDUCATION As a developed country, t
Page 7 and 8: service providers to expert policy
Page 9 and 10: The UK was a leading advocate of th
Page 11 and 12: The study was completed between Mar
Page 13 and 14: Women’s representation in UK and
Page 15 and 16: While women in the UK remain under-
Page 17: Finally the impact of a gendered, s
Page 21 and 22: Percentage of women in traditionall
Page 23 and 24: SAFETY The SDG 4 target of safe acc
Page 25 and 26: • The mean hourly pay gap for ful
Page 27 and 28: Case study - Agile Nation The Agile
Page 29 and 30: The global economic crisis has resu
Page 31 and 32: During the period covered by this s
Page 33 and 34: There is growing focus on the socia
Page 35 and 36: There is currently a gap in complia
Page 37 and 38: CULTURAL SECTORS: ARTS, SPORT AND T
Page 39 and 40: Case study - Women of the World Wom
Page 41 and 42: PRIORITIES AND GAPS Challenging the
Page 43 and 44: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ‘
Page 45 and 46: THE PRODUCTION OF WORLD- CLASS STAT
Page 47 and 48: REALISING THE POWER OF INTERNATIONA
Page 49: CONTRIBUTORS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS T

GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE UK

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