A recent survey of G20 countries found that the most developed economies also have the greatest gender equity. Canada tops the list, followed by Germany and the United Kingdom.
The study reveals, yet again, the strong correlation between sustainable growth and development, on the one hand, and gender equity on the other. A country cannot progress until it includes women in the labor market in a meaningful way, removes barriers to their advancement and offers them the same opportunities for education and health care as men.
Nowhere is this more true than in India, a vital democracy with an emerging economy which came dead last in the survey, conducted by Thomson Reuters Foundation in advance of the G20 summit. … Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently noted that India’s most underutilized resource is women, who compose only one-third of the labor force.
A panel of 379 experts ranked the 20 nations on several factors, including women’s and girls’ access to state resources, participation in politics, quality of health, freedom from violence and freedom from slavery and sex trafficking.
Also lagging in the survey are Mexico, China, South Africa and Indonesia. Saudi Arabia was second-to-last. Despite being an oil-rich country with good access to education and health, the participation of women in political and economic life is severely curtailed.
The best way to transform such a society is to convince government and the private sector of the business case for the advancement of women. Among other persuasive arguments is that educated and empowered women are better positioned to ensure that their own children — regardless of gender — are raised in a way that prepares them to succeed, helping to ensure the next generation is positioned to enhance productivity and competitiveness.
Sustainable development isn’t possible when half a nation’s work force cannot fulfill its potential.
The Globe and Mail, Toronto (June 22)
This is simply Marxist clap-trap.
America and the other nations of the West are increasingly dysfunctional, while China, India, and other nations which preserve traditional values are growing in strength.
Please print the news, and not bogus propaganda on behalf of the Left.
China has been embracing America-style “profits not people” regulation-free capitalism for years. This, combined with socialist government sponsorship of industry, is what’s made China’s economy so successful – and combined with authoritarianism and a general disregard for human rights, it’s also turned China into a a dystopian hellhole.
What you dismiss as “Marxist clap-trap” is actually just common sense and human decency.
It’s hardly human decency.
America has a 60% divorce rate, the largest prison population n the world, and many other forms of social decay.
All was achieved by means of laws meant to be “common sense” and “human decency” — human decency as in abortion, homosexual marriage, and career women.
It’s a misguided view of the world fostered by people who have no higher value than the dollar sign.
So the women of the world should take how we treat women as a model?
Pathetic.