Closing the gender gap in Middle East and North Africa: 'Business Extra'

The Global Gender Gap Report 2022 — released by the World Economic Forum last month — said countries will take another 132 years, compared with 136 in 2021, to close the gap between men and women in the workforce.

In Mena, this figure stands at 115 years.

Overall, the gap has widened compared with before the pandemic and the lack of equity for women, particularly in management roles, has become a crisis. With the challenges facing business such as climate change, inflation and technological shifts, diversity of leadership as well as staff, will build resilience to cope with such an unprecedented era of change.

And the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated a long-term global trend of more women founding their own businesses, according to the professional social networking site LinkedIn.

Sue Duke, vice president of global public policy and economic graph at LinkedIn, which provides insights and data to research including the Forum's report, talks to host Mustafa Alrawi about the risks and opportunities involved in closing the gender gap.

In this episode

LinkedIn's perspective on the gender gap (0m 09s)

The best practice for closing the gender gap (4m 49s)

Reimagining work to achieve equity (11m 36s)

The benefits from closing the gap (15m 13s)

Read more

Bucking Covid-19 trend, Saudi women take job market by storm

Gender equality should be a truly universal aspiration

Gender equality is critical to UAE’s global competitiveness, economy minister says