portrait of female farm worker with digital tablet while observing plant disease

Why the international trade gender gap needs to close faster

In this episode of the Tax and Law in Focus podcast, we explore the scale of gender problem and some of the leading practices being deployed to help make a breakthrough.

Key takeaways:

Emphasize education: Equal educational opportunities for girls worldwide are crucial. A complete 12-year education empowers future generations of women to make a significant impact globally.
Support women through investment: Active support for female-led businesses is essential. The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates the potential and success of women when given equal opportunities for investment.
Address legal barriers: Tackling legal obstacles and property rights restrictions is vital. Implementing proactive laws and policies that promote women's financial inclusion and ownership rights will help narrow the gender trade gap.

For your convenience, full text transcript of this podcast is also available.

Susannah Streeter

Hello and welcome to the EY Tax and Law in Focus podcast – I'm your host Susannah Streeter. In this episode, we're focusing on why the gender gap in international trade needs to close faster. Women-led businesses account for just 15% of international trade. This imbalance is a major contributor to a global gender gap that the World Economic Forum says will take more than a century to close at the current rate of policy reform. In the entrepreneurial sphere, women face challenges like access to finance and balancing domestic responsibilities and professionally struggle to gain the recognition they deserve. Recruitment is a key part of the picture. Men are at a distinct advantage when it comes to accessing jobs in companies that are integrated into global value chains and which offer greater rewards and fewer risks. There is hope that focusing a sharper lens on gender issues will break down barriers and help scale up women-owned small- and medium-sized enterprises. The benefits this would bring to economic growth are striking. In the UK, an independent study found that if women started small businesses at the same rate as men, they would add another 307 billion dollars to the British economy. The case for businesses is also clear. Firms with a higher level of diversity, whether in management or the boardroom, have higher share price returns than companies with lower diversity levels. So how can businesses ensure they capture the value and opportunities that taking the right steps can offer. Some jurisdictions, particularly those in South America, are taking the lead, and gender provisions are becoming more common in free-trade agreements – but progress is uneven. In this podcast, we're going to look at the scale of the problem – and some of the best practices being deployed to help make a breakthrough. To do this, I will be joined by global experts from the worlds of trade and international politics who will set the scene and deliver plenty of key takeaways – to help companies, and society as a whole, be more proactive. But before I introduce them – please remember conversations during this podcast should NOT be relied on as accounting, legal, investment, or other professional advice. Listeners must, of course, consult their own advisors.
So please welcome to the podcast The Right Honorable Anne Marie-Trevelyan, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom. She previously served as Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade. Welcome Minister. Which part of the world are you visiting today, because I know you travel a lot?

Anne-Marie Trevelyan

In the UK. I'm in Parliament today because we've got a three-line whip. We're looking at the Finance Act, so I'm actually here doing my elected duty to vote, but I was last week in Singapore, Bangkok, and I will be shortly jumping on a plane to go to Washington, DC. So it never ends.

Streeter

It certainly doesn't. And we're really pleased to have grabbed you when we can be on the podcast. So much to talk about. And I'd also like to welcome Sally Jones, EY trade strategy and Brexit leader. Sally, really great to have you on the podcast. Where are you?

Sally Jones

I'm in New York at the moment. Thank you, Susannah.

Streeter

Anything exciting?

Jones

I hope that I'm about to be appointed by one of the banks to help them digitalize their financial services ecosystem. But it hasn't happened yet. So I don't want to tempt fate.

Streeter

Okay, well, Sally, thank you. It's great to have you with us. And we also have Pamela Coke-Hamilton, very pleased to say, who is the executive director of the International Trade Centre. Pamela, it's really great to have you with us. Where are you speaking to us from?

Pamela Coke-Hamilton

Thanks so much, Susannah. It's great to be here. I'm actually in Switzerland at the moment in Geneva, but on my way to Mongolia for a world export development forum and launching a SheTrades hub in Mongolia.

Streeter

Thank you, Pamela. Well, let me start with Anne-Marie Trevelyan. Do you think that persistent gender gaps in trade, economics, and politics are all related?

Trevelyan

Without a doubt, Susannah, that's the case because as with everything in life, holistic perspectives tell us that one drives the other, and of course, to your point, as you set out, women have a series of responsibilities, many of which are not in the economic space, which they are, I will say the backstop on, regardless of other support of family members, it's invariably, not always, but invariably the female who is the backstop for children, for older parents and so on. So there are all these extra strains in the system, and therefore, in politics, we rarely see gender balance. In economic environments, as you describe, and indeed in trade, we still see often interestingly, of course, women in positions of number two, and number three, doing a lot of the hard work and making sure that this works, but not necessarily in those front of house leadership roles. And, of course, that therefore has an impact on their economic situation compared to the men that they work with. And of course, in many countries, we see that because the cultural environment simply doesn't afford the opportunities for women to rise to the top yet in the way that their talents absolutely should allow.

Streeter

Absolutely. I mean, you're in a vital leadership role. How is it making a difference? Was there one particular moment when you thought I was moving the dial here?

Trevelyan

I think a number of things. In the Australia Free Trade Agreement, which I was very proud to negotiate, we put into that a gender chapter. This was our first FTA in the UK from scratch. And it was really important to me that we have that. Bless the Australians; they were up for taking that on. That is, if you like, a starting point from which, between our two nations, and our businesses, we want to drive and encourage this improvement in gender through trade. So if you like the kind of open door to help businesses think about how they can maximize that, but I'll tell you a funny story. It was one of the stranger moments of my career as secretary of state when I launched the Gulf Cooperation Council FTA talks; I took with me my team, and my private secretary, my special advisor, my trade expert, and we sat down with the lovely gentlemen of the GCC leadership, trade ministers from each of the countries. On their side were men, sitting behind them were all women. To my point those in the second position and my whole team were all women. And it wasn't until I sat down and I looked at them that I realized that I had brought a complete team of brilliant women to the table. And what was very touching, actually, was that the GCC lead, the Secretariat was very complimentary. And a little surprised but very complimentary and made the joke that he hoped that one day the woman sitting behind him would be at the top table, too. So I hope that it inspires those women, certainly behind them, to believe that they, too, can indeed be at the front of the house in trade talks and indeed leading their female business leaders across the world.

Streeter

Absolutely. That must have been quite a moment. And I can hear some cars honking in the background in support of that. So let me bring in Pamela Coke-Hamilton. Now, I mean, women are underrepresented in global trade decisions. At the World Trade Organisation, for example, only 30% of ministers are women. I mean, in your job, do you also feel like an outlier sometimes? How does that affect the way that you work?

Coke-Hamilton

Truthfully, I feel less of an outlier now than when I started 30 years ago. When I started, my first posting was to Geneva here for the Uruguay Round. And at that time, I would say maybe there were 10 women in the room. Now there are 30% of ambassadors are women, and more than half are actually chairs of different councils. So that's actually a huge improvement. So we're happy about that. And there's progress. But I think it's also more about how we look at the issue of financing. I was recently in East Africa and Central Asia, and I was really surprised that some delegations had no women at all, but the good news is, for the first time ever, Geneva's trade hub, ITC, WTO, and OTEP, are all women. And we're all looking at prioritizing women's economic empowerment on the international stage. And the other good news is that for the first time, gender was included in the language for the MC 12 and was launched as part of the 2017 Buenos Aires Declaration. So there is movement, there's progress. And there's evidence that gender equality is really good for international trade and economic growth. So when there's participation in trade, it works, and it works well for trade.

Streeter

Just pushing that forward, isn't it? Well, let me bring in Sally Jones. Do you see evidence that the global gender gap in trade is beginning to gain traction among policymakers?

Jones

Yes, I do. It's quite a positive story at the minute. Exactly as Pamela said, when the three heads of the three most important trade organizations are all women, that's got to be a positive thing, I think. But I would like to see more done, and I was very struck, oh, a couple of years ago now, when the UK-Mexico trade negotiations opened, and there was an event in London. And I was so impressed to see that the two lead negotiators were our own Anne-Marie Trevelyan for the UK, and Tatianna Clouthier, who was the Minister of the Economy for Mexico at that point in time, and I was struck then just how unusual it is to have two women shaking hands on a trade deal and how positive it is. That was a really powerful moment for me.

Streeter

Pamela, do you feel that when there is greater female participation, as Sally's just pointed out, there is greater progress made in narrowing the gender trade gap?

Coke-Hamilton

Yes, because when more women see women, they feel more empowered to actually get involved. One of the things I have found, and I found it out late in my career because a young lady came to me when I took over as director of trade at OTAT, she came to me, and said, you know, I'm so happy to see you there. Because when we see you there, we believe it's possible. And so that definitely has a kind of salutary effect. The second thing is more women involved in business also empowers and tends to allow other women in and enable them to actually begin to support more communities, support more families, and spread the word. And I think that is an important aspect of having women in the exporting and in the trade field. The other thing they found is women exporters are more productive than men who export. And therefore, it suggests that having more women in the space would definitely increase the capacity for women to trade. And also grow. I think one of the difficulties now, however, is we still don't see women at the highest levels of government. There are only six countries where women are more than 50% of power. Rwanda, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, New Zealand, and UAE. And so that's something we have to work on and see how we can actually change the landscape.

Streeter

Let me pick on that point; regarding business with Sally, do you think that this is really on the radar for trade functions of businesses?

Jones

No, on the whole, I don't think it is for a whole variety of reasons. I think one is that trade functions are typically quite small. So if you have a team of, I don't know, three or four people, then you recruit the three or four people who are best for your team without necessarily being a statistically representative sample of the population. I think the other thing is that there aren't that many people who do trade. So recruiting into trade functions is really, really hard. It's hard to get good people. So you have to take the people that are available to you at the time that you're recruiting. And it's one of those areas where politics is actually ahead of business right now.

Streeter

I think you're nodding there. Pamela, in what way would you like to expand, and what can be done?

Coke-Hamilton

There are a few things that can be done. One, I think it's important to engage businesses on the reality that if they have more women in their organizations, that actually increases their production base and also increases fair competitiveness and how much they actually gain from the business. The second thing is the private sector needs to understand that you can't simply remove half of the population from engagement; it is true that all men are lagging in the area of trade because the truth is there are not a lot of us involved. But I think if there are more women seen in the arena, then there'll be more women who will take part. On the private sector side, women also face higher requirements or collateral; we're more likely to also shoulder unpaid domestic work, you know, and face barriers in accessing education. And so our experience shows that the further you move down the ladder of development, unfortunately, the harder it is. So how do we redress that balance? It has to be specific, it has to be tailored, and it has to be intentional.

Streeter

Let's see what difference this would make if there was greater support among businesses and industry for female entrepreneurs in the UK. Anne-Marie, the Rose Review commissioned by the government, the UK government, made some pretty striking forecasts in this arena, didn't it?

Trevelyan

Absolutely. The tiny proportion of investment which is going to female-led businesses is, when you think about the fact that you've got any amount of evidence now demonstrating that female-led businesses are going to be more profitable, it seems profoundly illogical. So where is that risk balance being reconsidered? You know, more profitable, surely you should invest more and yet not. So as an investor, what are they? What are they not doing to apply what should be, you know, common sense to those models, to shift from what is, you know, in the teens in terms of the investment flows going to female their businesses upwards? And, you know, the reality is that, you know, there are in our investment houses, you know, men and women doing a great job, that's not a particularly imbalanced environment, and yet, they're making decisions on investment that are still heavily skewed. So it is, I think, incumbent upon all of us. And the Rose Review was a really good marker to demonstrate why they need to think about this. You know, we'd have never got female emancipation so that women had the vote if we hadn't built allies amongst the men who were in there who were going to change the law to do that. So I think you know, it is sadly incumbent on us to continue to point out what is the self-evident logic of investing in what will statistically be more likely to be a more successful, profitable business than a male-led one - no offense to those men leading very good businesses, but that is something that we need to tackle, and we will have to keep chatting about it in order to get through and help men shift the dial on their investment portfolios.

Streeter

And the stories of female emancipation are still really sharp, I think, in our minds because of all the pictures we saw of women campaigning for the vote. Sally's stories are super powerful in exposing why closing the gender gap is so vital. Tell me about Connie Stacy's story in particular and why it resonated with you.

Jones

Oh, this is a fantastic story. So Connie Stacy had a baby. And she was pushing her baby in its pram past the building site. And there was a fossil fuel-powered generator that was making an awful lot of noise, and it woke her baby up. And she had a thought, which was that it would be so much better if that generator was quieter. And then, she thought she could use battery technology as an alternative to diesel. And that would make it a battery that requires no technicians. No engineers, infinitely scalable, greener, quieter. And she built it; she built a prototype. She called it the Grengine. And she started a company called Growing Greener Innovations to build and market it. But then she started to run into challenges. And the first was that in terms of scaling her product and delivering to global markets, she needed finance. Now, as of 2022, only 2% of venture capital worldwide went to women-owned businesses, 2%. And that, I think, is in part because those funding decisions are made by men. So Stacy was running into circumstances where she built the prototype, and people were actually saying to her, yeah, but who actually invented it? They couldn't quite believe it was her that she, a woman, had invented this wonderful product. So she finally found success when she entered a contest sponsored by the US Department of Defense in 2018. Where the innovations themselves were the main focus rather than the founders pitching their idea for fundraising. And she won in her energy efficiency and grid technologies category. And that gave her the momentum she needed. And she went on to win a further 14 more awards of finance from the period from 2018 through to 2023 this year and has contracts to supply the Grengine to clients ranging from Canada's military to mining operations through to a Golf Resort in Wales. So she's now exporting to six countries, which puts her into the 15% of women-owned and managed businesses that do manage to export. It just goes to show what women can do when they're given the chance.

Streeter

It certainly does. But perhaps some women who didn't have the tenacity, those ideas would have fallen by the wayside. I mean, Anne-Marie, Connie clearly ran into a barrier that so many other female entrepreneurs have hit. What's your take on this? I mean, have you heard similar stories?

Trevelyan

Oh, sadly, that's a story that's repeated endlessly. And interestingly, if you turn it on its head, I'll hear from, for instance, regional VCs, who will say, you know, in the UK, well, there just aren't any female businesses to invest in. And you're thinking, Okay, how are we, wow are we going to reach that disconnect? So that, you know, those women out there who have got great ideas, like Connie, are visible and indeed presenting themselves to VCs so that they can, you know, take that choice. So we need to think I think more about how government can work. So in our Innovate UK, which is a fantastic government arm, which takes, you know, great ideas coming up through universities, but others as well, and how to become commercialized, how we encourage that and provide those government hubs which can cut through and push forwards. I think there's a really interesting when I was Secretary of State for International Development, I was always hugely impressed by the work being done on microloans, where venture capitalists are, and that's what they are, are using the microloan system support, you know, tiny cottage industries, you know, a 10-pound loan, for instance, to buy materials to help, you know, women set up a business and produce a product, which is, you know [inaudible], repay the loan very quickly and so on, and can grow and come back and borrow more. Some of those stories are incredible. And, you know, one might ask whether we actually have got that focus in the way that we saw some of these Indian VCs doing incredible work. And I think we've got to get much better at that. And we've got to find ways to make the banking systems more receptive and more open to women. You know, we've said it already, but it's often harder for women to set that narrative. You know, the point that Connie experienced, you know, it can't have been your idea is genuine, sort of Victorian, and you wonder how that is still in a system at all because it's engineering somehow, you know, women didn't, you know, female minds didn't invent it. You know, what I love is that it's incredibly successful. And I don't suppose anyone who's invested or indeed who wouldn't now ever admit to the fact that it wasn't always a great idea and that maybe they're kicking themselves for not being part of the early investment program, but it's the JK Rowling, isn't it? How many publishers that you have to go to before somebody saw a great story, and indeed, it's JK Rowling. Does anybody know what her first name is? Same as she had to choose to present herself that way, there's that shift that we've got to keep driving. So that gender, you know, that gender neutrality question, is that the way to solve it. Perhaps. I find that frustrating, personally, but it does. We see huge demonstrations of success with gender neutrality. We see it in universities, making applications gender neutral, for instance, which helps employers make better choices on the most qualified candidate rather than with unintentional bias. So I think there's more to do in that space.

Streeter

Pamela, tell me about the geographical differences there are in countries' successes in closing the gender gap in trade terms. To what extent would you say financing is a big part of this picture?

Coke-Hamilton

I think there's the fact that financing is a big part of the picture. I think if you look at the geographical differences between North and South, the poorer the country, the more unequal it tends to be because, you know, the priorities are going to be shifted towards things that they consider a priority. So, for example, 90% of women in Sub-Saharan Africa work in the informal sector. Therefore, the kinds of policies that need to be used to address their issues are not going to be front and center. The other issue is that there are differences even within the South. So, for example, there's a difference between Botswana and Angola or between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which share an island. So how do we look at addressing these issues? How do we address you know the reason for the country's success in closing the gender gap? Nordic countries are widely seen as world leaders in gender equality, more than 150 countries, however, have at least one law that is discriminatory towards women, and only 18 countries are free of any law disadvantaging women. So to change laws, we are committed to decisions, and to take those decisions, we need data. And we need gender-disaggregated data and analysis to identify the specific areas where we can gain from trade. So that means tackling the barriers, the lack of access, to finance the information skills and technology, and looking at also the new and emerging opportunities in the low carbon-transition or even e-commerce. So I think that that is the key element. How do we collect this aggregated data? Only 41 governments so far do it out of 192 countries, which suggests that there is a challenge. And unless we have that data, it is hard to therefore come up with policies that will address the weaknesses, geographically and otherwise.

Streeter

Absolutely. The data, as always, is really crucial. Let me bring in Sally. To what extent do you think this is a financing problem?

Jones

Oh, absolutely. It drives me nuts. Frankly. Financial services do seem to be particularly bad. I mean, data has shown that women are more likely to seek a new investment advisor when their spouse dies, because advisors at the grassroots level have only worked in the past to develop a relationship with the husband, it is assumed that the husband will be making the investment decisions, and therefore the wife isn't really worth bothering about. We have to change this mindset because we, as a society, are often taught that we won't succeed or won't go for it. And society assumes the same right back at us. Women won't always put themselves forward, whereas men will just give it a whirl. While women won't apply.

Streeter

What's your take on this, Anne-Marie?

Trevelyan

I think men will give it a whirl; we know statistically, that's definitely true. It's something that I tease my colleagues about and try to encourage, you know, fellow MPs to push themselves forward even though they, you know, think they've only got nine out of 10 on the attributes. Is that good enough? As you know, men will go on a one in 10. We have to be braver as women in believing that they can do what indeed they are expected to do. You know, whether you're grilling a general about a defense project or, you know, convening a whole series of senior ministers. And I was at the OECD just the other day, for instance, where also whilst we're busy doing all those bits of our job thinking, right, I'll get home at, you know, nine, will I have time to pop to the supermarket and get the shop tonight or am I going to have to do it tomorrow, has my partner remember to put the bins out. There's a really interesting piece in that space, which I think is while we have, and no offense to gentlemen who are really good at putting the bins out and many other domestic tasks, they often don't think of it; they're not responsible for the thought process as well. So my earlier point about women are so often the backstop in their domestic environment, which takes a level of brain power. Let's be clear. So we have to manage two jobs. I always say as a government minister and an MP. I have two jobs. I don't; I have three jobs. I absolutely have three jobs. I run my family, I'm a member of Parliament, and I'm a government minister. And if you ask me to look at my timesheet over the course of the week, I probably spend as much time unpaid and unloved doing the other jobs that no one else; if I didn't do them for a week, everyone else would very quickly notice. The idea that I might not do some of my job as an MP or as a minister would also be quickly noticed, but there would be a cohort of people who would wonder why it was that domestic life wasn't working. We carry that. I mean, I do it as a pleasure, it's my family's choice, but it's a burden nonetheless, which we factor in. And therefore, as women, we are more than capable, I mean, so much more than capable of doing one job in business, in trade, as a politician, as a lawyer, because we are really good at doing many things. But you see it right from, you know, through school aid within areas of separation about where, you know, girls or boys should study that somehow. And often, you know, those jobs, which are going to be more highly paid in the STEM areas, boys are continued to be directed to them, whereas girls are not, you know, there are business skills that naturally flow from some of those ideas. So in terms of empowering young women to have, you know, those same skills as well, so that they can be in the business, the front end of the business environment, we need to do more to do that. And we have to encourage women, you know, we are not as confident in our incredible skill sets as we should be. And you know, I'm very proud of my kids; I've got one of each, and I'm proud of them both, but my son will tell you that, my god, I do go on about it if there's any girl who doesn't seem to have confidence. Yes, because I can see incredible talents in a young person, which perhaps they can't see. So I'm going to get out of my way to try and help them believe in themselves. And that all those skills they have are ones which they can put to great use and to economic use as well.

Streeter

And it's that self-belief is that that's absolutely crucial. So Sally, how important do you believe women-only training sessions are to try and increase that confidence and then increase female participation?

Jones

Really, really important. Sometimes it's for cultural reasons. So we see India, for example, that's done women-only training for border controls and market sales so that the participants can practice and try out and achieve success without feeling that either there's a cultural prohibition or just a confidence prohibition. But I do recognize what Anne-Marie said. I went to an all-girls school. And you'd think that that would be an incredible springboard for the women of that school who graduated from that school to be successful. And yet, when we did our age 16, fill out a questionnaire, it told us what career we might be suited for. And we all somehow miraculously ended up being suited for nursing or teaching or nannying, even though we were very, very intelligent and smart people. I mean, the possibility that I could be a lawyer or an accountant or a business leader never came up in those surveys, and yet the boy's school down the road, all of the boys that were on the same school bus as me, were getting a business leader or doctor or accountant or lawyer coming up. This is even then, which would have been maybe 1991-92, that that bias was coming through in the questionnaire. So it's absolutely endemic, right, from very, very young ages.

Streeter

So Anne-Marie, what else can individual countries do to try and ensure that there is a level playing field for women?

Trevelyan

So we're incredibly lucky in the UK and in many parts of the world where things like land rights are a given, but in many countries, the reality is that that isn't so, and some of the work I did when I was the adaptation resilience champion for Cop 26 was to get out about trying to understand exactly some of these limiting factors to women being able to be part of the adaptation solutions in their communities. A really interesting project I visited in Costa Rica, for instance, cocoa farmers, they were looking to very clever because the temperature rises. Cocoa is a very delicate plant. So planting trees to protect the cocoa plants from too much sun. So there was an amazing group of female farmers. I always asked whenever I travel to meet a group of females, whatever, you know, business leaders, farmers, teachers, students, whatever it is, I can hear their voices in the country. But these female cocoa farmers didn't own the land on which they farmed. So either their husbands did, or perhaps their fathers did. But for some reason, they were farming; perhaps their husband had died. But they didn't have automatic land rights, so they could not raise capital in order to buy [inaudible], and spend some money to buy the trees to provide protection for their cocoa farm. And what I was visiting was a really interesting project that we were we were supporting as the UK to create a grant system so that they could, but it really is a practical problem. You don't have land rights. You then have no authority of that and those sorts of things that can [inaudible], they're big challenges to a country that doesn't have those frameworks in place. And that's something that the UK Government, through our development work, tries to do quite a lot of to help countries build that governance and those rights framework so that women are in equal, if you like, position to men to be able to make progress, and there is work to do across a number of countries in that space.

Streeter

So really interesting to hear about that individual case, Anne-Marie. Let me bring in Sally. To what extent do you think that overall trade systems could be holding back female entrepreneurs and women in companies who might be more inclined to push female-orientated products, for example? I mean, let's look at this extra tax slapped on goods aimed at women. And do you think they limit sales and, therefore, the development of new areas of product innovation?

Jones

Without a doubt, I mean, so much has been written about the pink tax, which is effectively the retail premium that women sometimes pay to buy a pink razor rather than a blue one. But that goes deeper; the whole phenomenon goes deep purse. So in a 2020 study, they looked at two decades worth of tariffs on men's and women's clothing across 167 countries. So the majority of the world, what we found is that imports of women's goods are taxed more than imports of men's goods. And to give you a sense of how much that matters, well, in the US, tariffs add about 75 cents to the cost of men's underwear and around $1.10 to a pair of women's underwear. It's quite a stark gap there when you're counting every penny as people are at the minute. But it's not just about the taxes and how women are affected as consumers. It's also about how they're affected as workers. So, for example, in developing countries, women and men vie for formal employment as opposed to informal employment. And they're looking for companies that are integrated into global value chains because those are the ones that offer the biggest rewards and the least risk. And according to the World Bank, two-thirds of those positions go to men; when you couple that with how women as entrepreneurs are struggling to gain the professional recognition they deserve to access finance, to balance career aspirations with domestic responsibilities, or even awful as it is to contemplate bribe demands or unwanted sexual encounters, you start to appreciate just how many hurdles are being put in women's way.

Streeter

Pamela, where can you point to best practice? Which countries are getting it right or at least better when it comes to closing the gender pay gap?

Coke-Hamilton

Okay, I would say the countries that are really a standout, for example, are Rwanda. Rwanda is a huge example of a country that has actually implemented cultures to increase not just female political representation but also in terms of progress in building bridges, in education in the gender gaps, and also in labor force participation. And even though your question also is focused on the gender pay gap, I think we should also look at the issue of women's economic empowerment. We have an analytical policy tool called She Trades which looks precisely at this issue. And if you look at 55 indicators across six pillars, you'll find that it shows very clearly a measurement of how do we address this gap? What are the mechanisms that countries need to put in place? There are policymakers in 52 countries, including the UK, who have adopted this. I think we have found, for example, that mainstreaming gender and international trade policy. Rwanda's Ministry of Trade and Industry has done that with the AFCFTE. And then, when you begin to look at gender-responsive public procurement, supported by the Gambia, they have been able to show that even though 1% of public procurement opportunities globally go to women, it constitutes 40% of GDP across the world. It's an immediate opportunity for governments to be able to step in and say you know what, we're going to look at creating a gender-responsive procurement policy. And we worked through the Gambia to put this in place, and they're targeting 30% of all government purchasing spend by 2026, which will immediately have an impact on women's economic empowerment and access to one of the most lucrative markets in terms of contracting across the world.

Streeter

Absolutely. And how much do you see as well that recruitment is part of the problem, is really worsening the prospects for female empowerment and the gender trade gap, particularly when you find out that two-thirds of positions in firms integrated into the global value chain go to men?

Coke-Hamilton

Well, Anne-Marie referred to this earlier, and I also think Sally did about the fact that recruitment is a problem not only because, you know, employers think men perform better, I don't know why, despite all evidence to the contrary, but it also shows that employers favor men over women a lot of times because they feel that you know, I've had officers, managers come to me and say, oh, you know, she's pregnant again. Or, you know, if we hire this woman in this age range, there's going to be a problem. So you find that there's that automatic bias. There's also the issue of women leaving the workforce. And so, for me, one of the key elements that we have to begin to look at is why women are leaving the workforce. For every woman at the director level who gets promoted, two have left the workforce. So that is a significant problem. And I think while we can look at measures such as, for example, going anonymous, like, you know, doing a kind of selection process that anonymizes the audition, and then you will see, you know, what comes out, you try to, of course, eliminate bias, you promote diversity and inclusion, you expand access to education, and you're encouraged supplier diversity, all of those measures. But the truth is, at the root of the problem, I have found, it has been my experience, that if we don't address the fundamental challenges that women face in the carry con, just look at COVID and what happened in that single two year period, over 2 million women left the workforce in the United States alone in a year and a half. And I don't know that that has bounced back since that time. And I know a lot of women were under such significant stress because they had two or three children at home that they had to be schooling, plus taking care of the home, plus working, and it just became unsustainable. So one thing that I have found very, very important is addressing that issue, where women can feel that their children will be okay, will be taken care of will be able to be in a safe environment. And that there's that responsive mechanism, I can tell you, I've been here five years in Geneva, and there is no place where a young woman can relieve her child in the UN system in the entire couple of miles block of the UN system. It's incredulous. And on top of which, what therefore happens is that all the women between say 27 to 40 have to go on 80%. Because one of the things in Geneva and France is that on Wednesdays, children either don't go to school or go to school half day. So who stays on? Who has to be the one, and so they can't work 100%? How does that, therefore, impact their promotion possibilities? Because you're not there, you know, you're not there 80% for 20% of the time. And so that tends to be, for me, one of the biggest challenges. And if more workplaces and more organizations can address that issue, it will change a lot of how women are able to engage in a more fulsome way, one and also a fairer way.

Streeter

Absolutely. And Anne-Marie, you mentioned a little earlier how you're mentoring female politicians to try to give them confidence, but it is clear that women struggled to gain the professional recognition they deserve. How do you think changes in helping balance career aspirations with domestic responsibilities could move the dial here, for example, by improving access to cheaper childcare?

Trevelyan

So I think childcare is an issue very much on the agenda in the UK; we've just actually changed how we're going to be doing them in terms of government support for childcare, but different countries across the world, do it differently. And that challenge of how you invest as a government to support that, if you like, short-term cost in order to maximize the economic value of your female workforce is one that I think many, many countries, even Western countries, are not agreed on. And I think we need to continue to direct and to prove the point, you know, the sorts of work that Sally and her teams can do to prove the economic case, which says yes, it's much more expensive if the government provides, let's say, 40 hours a week of childcare, nongender specific, but you know what, that will assure this many more females coming back into the workforce. There's an interesting piece, though, on that which, as the government's trying to find a place we increased years ago, childcare so that all parents who were working, they could have extra hours of childcare in school, so within the school environment, and not separately for preschoolers. But what happened was that the children whose parents were working got more effectively structured time with teachers and you know, what you might do when you go home spending time reading, you do that in school, because school provides that environment, whereas the children whose parents were not working, will be sent home at three o'clock and therefore we're getting a double whammy of less input in terms of academic and, you know, focus learning environment and getting that right so that those least supported at home as well have a chance to grow all the more so that the next generation of young people is more prepared, boys and girls, is one that we have to get right. So we continue, I think, as all governments to work out what in a formalized sense rather than the informal childcare sectors, which grannies and grandpas do for free because they love their kids and their grandkids. That's not enough. And it's, you know, not one that the economics tell us is the most effective.

Streeter

Absolutely; I mean, Sally's flexibility is just so crucial. Given that work-life balance appears increasingly unsustainable in many countries. Do you think the proliferation of eCommerce platforms is helping to push forward progress in some nations?

Jones

eCommerce is a really interesting phenomenon and very much one that COVID has encouraged. The short answer to your question is yes, e-commerce helps women, and a study from Indonesia showed that for every three men who'd started trading digitally, four women had started trading. So it's about a four-to-three ratio in favor of women, which is great. The slightly more nuanced answer is that a separate study in the Philippines suggested that although women are more likely to move to an eCommerce platform, perhaps for work-life balance reasons, men make more money from eCommerce, the average male business makes more money than the average female-led business and no one knows quite why that is. My personal view is that it can't possibly be a bad thing to give people more opportunities to trade in any format that works for them.

Streeter

Pamela, tell me about the International Trade Centre She Trades initiative in light of what Sally has just been talking about as well. How is it aiming to move the dial by helping women and businesses find connections and bridge the gaps and potentially earn more money?

Coke-Hamilton

Well, okay, I'm really happy to tell you about the She Trades initiative. It is one of our flagship programs and one that we've been very, very happy to, you know, continue. It's connected so far, 3 million women entrepreneurs in 30 countries to international markets. And we're really aiming higher through our agenda moonshot to try to create a more gender transformative approach to the work for women and economically empower them. We also have a She Trades Impact Fund, which is a blended finance gender investment fund that is focused on bridging the gap in emerging markets. We also have the issue of climate change and how that has been impacting women. Last year alone, we had 44 Women Entrepreneurs transacting $1.29 million in business through the She Trades website and mobile app. And we own She Trades hubs across Africa, Asia, South America, and the Caribbean. And those have been basically working with women in each of these regions and governments, including our regional hub, of course, in the Caribbean; we've had more than 100 support organizations who have onboarded She Trades. And we have 100,000 active users. And we're really happy that this has allowed them not just to have access to knowledge and market intelligence and eLearning courses but also enable them to access new markets using eCommerce, using platforms such as Amazon, and others, Etsy for their arts, and so on. We've also provided technical assistance to over 17 countries, the mainstream gender industry, and business policies; we've had a major focus on Africa because we're trying to build that continental network of African women's business associations. And we're also supporting gender mainstreaming through the women's protocol, youth, and protocol in the Afcfta. So we're very happy with how that has worked.

Streeter

There are a huge amount of initiatives and so much enthusiasm and dedication to ensuring that these problems are solved. We could talk all day about them. But I just really want to kind of wind up this podcast in just getting one key insight from each of you, one takeaway for the listeners. What is your one big recommendation that you think could make all the difference in closing the gender trade gap? Anne-Marie, first of all.

Trevelyan

So you're asking me to only pick one that's really hard. So my second most important would be driving ways to find to challenge investors to invest more in women, to challenge them to go and find female investments and use their cash to help them grow. But I would hope that any rational investor out there, and I challenge all of you listening, would see the logic of saying we ought to be shifting the balance there. The most important thing we can and must do is ensure that you know girls across the world get a full 12 years of education because if we don't do that, we continue to reduce the capability of those now children, future young women, and business leaders to maximize their impact in every single country. So if we could do one thing, it is continue to drive the full education of girls across the world.

Streeter

Anne-Marie, thank you very much. Sally, what's your big takeaway?

Jones

All of the evidence shows that if you give women a shot, they will succeed beyond their wildest dreams. So give women a shot.

Streeter

Thank you. And finally, Pamela.

Coke-Hamilton

Thanks a lot, Susannah. As you said, it's hard to do one, but I would say this, there are 75 countries that still limit women's rights on property ownership and inheritance, which directly impacts their ability to access credit, as land is always very often used as collateral. Let us address very direct, tangible, and targeted ways the facilitation of women in the law, embedded in national law, to change how a woman can access, finance, gain economic empowerment, and move ahead fairly.

Streeter

Okay. Thank you so much to all three of you, a really fascinating discussion; there are some really super useful insights from the International trade stage. Thank you, to all of you, to Pamela to Anne-Marie, and to Sally,

Jones

Thank you. It's been wonderful to be part of this discussion today.

Trevelyan

Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure to talk about the issues that keep us busy in government, and you've given me a number of ideas to go and drive forward.

Coke-Hamilton

Thank you so much, Susannah; I really enjoyed this conversation. It's really empowering to me to see how we are working to empower other women.

Streeter

Thank you so much for your time. For more information, you can visit ey.com. And a quick note from the legal team. The views of third parties set out in this podcast aren't necessarily the views of the globally wide organization nor its member firms. Moreover, they should be seen in the context of the time in which they were made. I'm Susannah Streeter; I hope you'll join me again for the next edition of Tax and Law in Focus brought to you by EY, building a better working world.

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Susannah Streeter
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Episode 13

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EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.

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