ClosinGap_Women for a Healthy Economy

Last 6th February 2020 I had the honor to participate at the 5th Edition of the WIB (Women in Business) Conference: The Power of We organized by IESE.

I am strongly convinced of the value that events like this bring when it comes to encouraging reflection and debate on equal opportunities, and sharing the work we are doing from different productive sectors in relation to the promotion and utilisation of female talent.

In addition, I believe that the theme of the WIB meeting, which was none other than teamwork to take advantage of female talent, coincides point by point with the spirit and fundamental principles that explain the initiative ClosinGap: Women for a Healthy Economy I presented to the audience.

ClosinGap, a cluster that 12 large companies have created with the aim of joining efforts to reduce the gender gaps until their complete elimination. This implies that not taking advantage of all female talent entails an opportunity cost and an impact on the GDP and the economic growth.

Two years ago, for the first time in history, the Davos Forum, the largest meeting of economic and business leaders in the world promoted by the WEF (World Economic Forum), was organised by women only and aspects of diversity and inclusion were put on the table.

Diversity is a source of knowledge and innovation, and is also profitable because it contributes to wealth, not only by opinion but also to the growth of companies.If we want to respond to the global challenges we face, we must go through a transformation based on diversity where the companies mirrors the reality of our society.

Companies with diversity are 70% more likely to capture new markets and 75% more likely to bring innovative ideas to the market.  Of course, diversity goes beyond gender, but since women represent approximately 50% of the potential workforce, the impact of improving gender equality is immense.

Last year the OIT (International Labor Organization) published that companies with equal employment opportunities policies and inclusive gender cultures are more likely to increase their profits and productivity (more than 60%), improve their reputation, attract and retain talent more easily and achieve greater levels of innovation creativity (almost 60%). But also the women representation on high level management positions increases profit for companies between 5-20%.

These are some data among multiple sources that shows clearly that there can be no economic growth, no social progress without using female talent's full potential. No society moves forward without using all its talent.

And we know, precisely from the World Economic Forum, that we would need almost 100 years to completely close the gender gaps at the current pace.

The origin of ClosinGap

In 2014 Merck, the Company of Science and Technology, launched at global level the project Healthy Women, Healthy Economies, with the goal of breaking down the barriers holding back female talent, in particular, the barriers relating to health and workplace integration, as there are still countries with significant inequality.

The initiative began in partnership with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC). This collaboration was the first to explicitly link the subject of women’s health and well-being with economic growth and was considered by the United Nations Organization (UN) as a key program to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

Spain is one of the most advanced countries in the field of policies for the defense of equal opportunities, which has led us even, according to the most recent data of the Global Gender Gap report published by the World Economic Forum, to occupy 8th place in the world.

We know, precisely from the World Economic Forum, that we would need almost 100 years to completely close the gender gaps at the current rate and we also know, through reports of great relevance such as the one published by McKinsey, which today, if women had not been incorporated in the working market like in the 90′s,  the Spanish GDP would have been less in an 18% (Women Matter 2017).

Taking into account that the magnitude of this challenge that is beyond the reach of a single company to promote social transformation, we decided to seek support from other major companies, such as Merck, in the field of equal opportunities in order to share everything we were already doing and dedicate resources, time and efforts to analyse what else we can do.

Not only from our companies reality but from society as a whole and with a clear mission: to promote social transformation from the business sphere through the promotion of equality and the use of female talent from public-private collaboration.

With pleasure, we were immediately joined by numerous companies reaching the current 12, which are the following: Merck, MAPFRE, Repsol, Vodafone, Mahou San Miguel, BMW Group, PwC, ONCE Social Group, ONCE Social Group , L'Oréal, Meliá Hotel International and KREAB. Together we add up to about one million employees worldwide.

Each of the companies decided to lead a gender gap, with a triple pronged route:

• First, investigate and analyse the current situation and the scope it has in society.
• Secondly, determine the opportunity cost of each gap, or in any case, how much GDP they impede in Spain due to the persistence of each inequality.
• Third, determine what we believe could be done to gradually reduce each of the gaps. 

With these basic pillars and work areas defined, we proceeded to create the cluster, with the shared belief that the success of this initiative happened, 100%, by involving the top representatives of each of the companies that form the cluster.

For that reason, we created a double work structure. On the one hand, a Board formed by the presidents and CEOs of the 12 companies, led by our President Marieta Jimenez, Regional Vice President Europe Biopharma – International Operations at Merck.  And, on the other, an Executive Committee, which is the one I have had the honour of running for a year and a half, formed by a representative of the steering committees of each of the companies.

Reports Released

In this first year and a half of existence, ClosinGap has already published its first six reports on gender gaps in health, conciliation, pensions, leisure, mobility and tourism. And, in just a few days, we will present the seventh monographic work, which will focus on the gender gap in employment, one of the most important.

I do not want to go into a long list of figures, percentages and comparatives, but I would like to touch on very briefly the different areas that we have analysed thanks to the collaboration and rigor of Afi, International Financial Analysts.

I will mention that we have found two types of analysis. On the one hand, those in which inequality translates into a loss of GDP and, therefore, productivity for the economy. And, on the other, those in which, while women has been facing the corresponding gender gap, has developed a behavior that, in the long run, has placed her in a situation of social leadership.

Within the first area, the analyses carried out in the fields of health, conciliation, pensions and entertainment are included. And in the second area, the mobility report and the tourism report, which will soon be complemented by other gaps we are working on.

Health Report

The health gap was the first report we led from Merck, based on the fact that women live four years longer than men. The analysis determined that:

• Although women have a life expectancy at birth 5.5 years higher than men, and 4 years higher when they reach 65 years of age, if only years in good health are considered the difference disappears.
• If women lived in better circumstances for those 4 additional years of life expectancy, the potential for the economy as a whole would be about 9.000 million euros, representing almost 1 point of GDP (0.8%).
• The reduction of the fertility rate has effects on the demographic and economic health of the country. The opportunity cost in relation with low birth is 31.000 million euros in 2016, it is 2.8% of the GDP during that year.
• The role women has as a non-professional caregiver has also impact on the health and in the economy. The economic potential of the time differential that women employ in the role of caregivers (non-professional) amounts to 7.812 million euros a year, which is 0.7% of GDP.

Conciliation Report

The lack of conciliation was the second field analysed, in this case under Repsol's leadership. In particular, the 'double day' that we still face today: work and family, with women already mentioned doing domestic chores two hours more a day.

The report determined that men spend each day, all together, in Spain, 37.5 million hours on care and household chores, compared to 87 million hours for women.

If this inequality is eliminated, women would have, globally, an additional 49.5 million hours a day and the value that these hours could bring to the economy would exceed 100,000 million euros; that is, 8.9% of the GDP of 2017.

Leisure Report

Going deeper into this area, Mahou San Miguel and Solán de Cabras, studied the gender gap in leisure, based on the premise that this greater dedication to domestic chores must unquestionably lead to a reduction in free time for women.

The report reflected that women have less free time than men, which means less time to devote to leisure. And not only is it a matter of quantity, but the differences with respect to men also encompass the quality of that free time.

The least time available for women to enjoy reaches 11.1 million hours per day and is equivalent to 22% of the 49.5 million hours that women dedicate to conciliation each day.

If this hours were professionalized, the economic value would reach 23.190 million euros per year, which means 2% of the GDP.

Pensions Report

Another area we studied, under MAPFRE's leadership, was pensions; without a doubt, one of the main present and future challenges of the Welfare State. 

Starting from the more than 400 euros difference between the average pensions of women and men in Spain, the analysis unearthed an interesting exercise in which it was analysing, point by point, the different contribution gaps that women accumulate during their working lives are down to leave, reductions in working hours, etc., which, at the end of their working career, results in lower pension amounts.

The study estimated the value of the pension gender gap to be 26,900 million euros in terms of Gross Value Added (GVA), representing 2.2% of the GDP of 2018.

Freeing up these hours can be done in several ways, but not exclusive to: on the one hand, an increase in men's dedication to greater co-responsibility; on the other, outsourcing these services, whose economic value amounts to at least a figure of 23,190 million euros per year, equivalent to 2% of GDP.

Mobility report

As for the second block of reports, those which have unveiled women's leadership role, the Mobility report which analysed the differences in how men and women travel through large cities, emphasising the new modes of transport (shared cars, scooters, shared bikes, etc.).

This work was led by the BMW Group, which pioneered a field study in the five largest cities in Spain. Work that allowed us to corroborate the role of women as a catalyst for change in urban mobility.

For three fundamental reasons; firstly, because women make greater use than men of shared, public transport - subway, bus and train - or private - shared car - while men use individual transport more in both cases.

Secondly, because women are more aware of the need to travel in a more respectful manner to the environment, when they consider buying a vehicle, they take on board the different elements of environmental protection more than men.

And, thirdly, because their mobility is more complex than that of men and includes more journeys and of a diverse nature, but is more planned and makes a greater use of digital resources.

If the whole society should adopt this behaviour, the savings for the Government would reach 93 million euros per year.

Under 35 years old, we have verified that there is no gender gap. New generations follow up women behavior and leadership.

Tourism Report

To close this second block, Meliá Hotels International led an analysis of the gender gap in tourism from the perspective of the differences between trips made by men and women.

The study determined that there are no significant differences in trips by both when they are made for personal reasons and that the gender gap appears when the labour component comes into play, for each business trip that a woman makes, a man makes three; that is, triple.

If working women made the same business trips per year as working men, then another 6 million trips per year would be made, which amounts to, 19.7 million more overnight stays. The economic impact of this greater number of business trips by employed women could rise to 2,350 million euros, a figure equivalent to 0.2% of GDP in 2018.

These are just the main conclusions of the first six reports we have published, all of them available in full on the ClosinGap website (www.closingap.com).

The aforementioned on employment, led by PwC, will be joined by another this year 2020, others on responsible consumption driven by L'Oréal, a work on digital divide in which Vodafone is already going into in more depth, an analysis on the particularities of the rural environment led by Bankia and an analysis of the double discrimination of women with disabilities that will be promoted by the ONCE social group.

Voluntary agreements

Finally, I would like to stress that all these analyses and the data that have been generated are only the first of many remaining steps.

At ClosinGap we are transferring the different studies' conclusions to the main policy makers, not only from the quantitative point of view but from the perspective of the recommendations that each of the different analyses have yielded.

And, on the other hand, once the first analyses were published and, without waiting for those that have yet to be published, we have decided to take action, because we should not wait another minute. We have reached a total of 15 voluntary agreements in three different areas.

Firstly, in the internal reality of the companies, where we will motivate the internal debate on equal opportunities, apart from other actions that we will share later.

Second, jointly Closingap agreements, through actions such as the development of a Toolkit of good practices of ClosinGap companies that can serve as a reference for companies working in any field, since the twelve companies that are part of the initiative all come from totally different sectors.

And, thirdly, through social agreements with which we want to put our grain of sand in the transformation that must occur from equal opportunities. In this sense, we will develop actions with which we will disseminate both the conclusions obtained and the actions that the analyses throw up as necessary to change this reality.

We have, therefore, a lot of work ahead of us at ClosinGap. Many challenges to face, establishing synergies and working together. And a huge potential as a society, as evidenced by the data I have exposed throughout the remarks I have just made.

What are the next milestones and reports to be published?

• Employment Gap will be presented next 21st of February′20, leaded by PwC.
• In March′20 the Consumption Gap leaded by L′Oreal.
• In May′20 digital gap leaded by Vodafone.
• The rural environment gap leaded by Bankia in September′20.
• In October′20 we will celebrate the II Closingap Economic Equality Summit
• Ans before the end of the year, in November′20, the disability gap leaded by ONCE Social Group.

I invite you to participate in the different actions and events that we organise at ClosinGap and I ask you to help us disseminate both the initiative itself and all the conclusions presented.

The work we carry out together is how we are going to move forward faster, without waiting 100 years, towards a society in which the equality that appears in laws goes from being a legal equality to a real equality.

You have all the information at www.closingap.com and can follow us at  @closingap with the Hastag: #Closingap and Linkedin (https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/closingap/)

Ana Polanco

Director of the ClosinGap Executive Committee

References:

1. www.closingap.com
2. Women Matter 2017_A way forward for Spain. McKinsey&Company.( https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/gender-equality/women-matter-2017-a-way-forward-for-spain/es-es)
3. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_700977.pdf
4. Global Gender Gap Report 2020 (https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf)
5. https://www.ey.com/en_gl/women-power-utilities/could-gender-equality-be-the-innovation-boost-utilities-need
6. Héroes de la Diversidad: Por qué las organizaciones necesitan apostar por la inclusión. Marta García-Valenzuela y Alicia Jiménez Jiménez. Ed.Gestión 2000- Grupo Planeta.