President highlights areas of focus to raise gender equality

The Covid-19 pandemic has undermined women's progress, and there are three areas that countries around the world can focus on to advance gender equality, President Halimah Yacob said yesterday.

She called for governments to prioritise gender equality and place it at the centre of their development programmes, and to ensure women have equal access to education and training and labour market information.

There also needs to be greater, measurable improvements in the workplace, such as narrowing the gender wage gap, added Madam Halimah, who delivered the opening remarks at the two-day Women of Our Time conference, organised by South China Morning Post, on International Women's Day yesterday.

"(The pandemic) has affected women disproportionately and exposed them to greater vulnerabilities. This points to the need for more urgent and coordinated efforts to support women's development," said the President.

Governments need to establish effective national policies and implement programmes to better integrate women in the economy and society, she said.

Widening inequalities weaken the social fabric, undermine solidarity, retard human potential and affect future growth.

"It is also important to ensure women are represented at all levels of decision-making, so that their voices can be heard, and their needs and aspirations are better reflected," Madam Halimah said.

Women also need to be able to participate meaningfully in the economy by being trained with the right skills and capabilities and being provided with the right access to jobs and opportunities, she added.

Reports have shown how greater gender equality can boost economic growth and enhance productivity, she said.

However, women must be trained beyond the traditional sectors, where there is greater risk of job redundancy due to technological and structural changes as well as climate change.

Madam Halimah added that a key growth area to focus on is to get more women into the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. "The continued lack of women in these fields will put them at a disadvantage as they will be excluded from the many good careers, particularly as technology has become an important enabler in practically all aspects of our lives."

At the workplace, business leaders should set targets to narrow the gender wage gap and ensure gender balance in hiring and career advancement policies, in particular for leadership positions, she added.

Madam Halimah said that to meaningfully achieve this, businesses have to allocate enough resources, set gender equality as a business objective and make it trackable by all in the company.

The inaugural conference, which features speakers from around the world, aims to highlight how women in Asia are crucial in bringing about change and opportunities for a new generation amid mounting challenges.

Other speakers include newly appointed World Trade Organisation director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the first woman to hold the position; former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard; and female business leaders including Grab co-founder Tan Hooi Ling and Trip.com Group chief executive Jane Sun.

Meanwhile, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo said at a separate event yesterday that women comprise only 30 per cent of people working in the technology field, and more can be done to encourage them to join the sector.

Launching the SG Women in Tech Company Pledge, where about 50 companies pledged to support women in the sector, Mrs Teo said she hopes more organisations will join such initiatives.