TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
IMF chief Georgieva tells women: Don't accept less!
The International Monetary Fund released a report on Tuesday which found that unpaid work "is a substantial part of economic activity that goes unmeasured and is shouldered disproportionally by women."
Change Size
Kristalina Georgieva, CEO of the World Bank, during a forum at the 2018 IMF/World Bank spring meetings April 18, 2018 in Washington, DC. (AFP/Brendan Smialowski)
W
omen around the world take on far more unpaid work than men but what they should never do is agree to a lower wage in the workplace, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said Tuesday.
She recounted her experience early in her career during the Soviet era, saying she did not know at the time she could bargain for better conditions.
To women of today she said: "Do not accept to be less paid than your colleague men, ever!"
The International Monetary Fund released a report on Tuesday which found that unpaid work "is a substantial part of economic activity that goes unmeasured and is shouldered disproportionally by women."
In fact, women do two hours more of unpaid work than men every day and even "in the most egalitarian countries in the world, women do at least 20 percent more unpaid work than men," notably chores around the home, the report said.
To address that issue, governments must invest in infrastructure, to provide water and electricity and internet access, but also provide services such as childcare and elder care, and improve education opportunities, to help women "replace unpaid work with paid work."
In more advanced economies, that means "implementing family-friendly policies such as parental leave and taxation of secondary earners, enhancing the efficiency of labor markets, and promoting flexible work arrangements."
But asked by one young woman how to achieve professional success, Georgieva offered no easy solutions:
"You have to be competent and to be more confident."
She also said quotas for hiring women in private firms were not a perfect solution "but it's pragmatic" since it could provide a faster path to gender equity in the workplace. Otherwise it will take a "very, very long time."
