International Women’s Day 2022

The 2022 UN International Women's Day Theme is 'Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow'. As we planned for this day, rallying female climate and sustainability leaders from across the PwC Network to share their voice on the twin challenges of Climate and Gender Equality, we never imagined that we would find ourselves in the position we are in today of looking on in horror at the dire situation unfolding in Ukraine. 

This International Women’s Day, our thoughts continue to be with our Ukrainian colleagues and their loved ones, the Ukrainian people generally and in particular today, with the girls and women who have lost their lives, whose lives are in danger or who have been displaced or separated from loved ones by this grave situation.

Women in Work Index 2022

Building an inclusive workplace in a net zero world

This year, we celebrate a decade of PwC’s Women in Work Index. The report reflects on the very real impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on women’s lives, jobs, economic prosperity, and broader wellbeing; and importantly, to look towards the future.

The pandemic has set back progress towards gender equality at work by at least two years. As governments and businesses around the world come together to rebuild economies and accelerate action to address the climate crisis, there are lessons to be learned from the pandemic that must be woven into policies going forward, if we are to achieve a greener, fairer, and more prosperous future for all.

Read more about our Women In Work Index

Women may miss out on new green jobs - a risk of even greater inequality in the future

The next decade of Women in Work will be shaped by the transition of economies to net-zero emissions, and the corresponding jobs created. Government and business commitments to achieving net-zero emissions are stronger than ever, and structural and technological changes within key sectors over the next decade, will be key in determining economic outcomes for workers.

Our analysis of the energy sector’s transition to net zero shows that across the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), new green jobs created will be concentrated in only a few sectors: utilities, construction, and manufacturing being the clear top three. These sectors employ nearly 31% of the male workforce across the OECD, compared to only 11% of the female workforce. With new jobs concentrated in sectors that are male-dominated, men are immediately better placed to take advantage of the new opportunities.

If nothing is done to improve women’s representation in these sectors, we estimate that the employment gap between men and women across the OECD will widen by 1.7 percentage points by 2030 rising from 20.8% in 2020 to 22.5% in 2030 (instead of 22.0% in the case that OECD economies did nothing to address the climate crisis).

The transition to net zero must be gender inclusive and promote women’s economic empowerment

As the world continues to respond to climate change, the 10th edition of our Women in Work Index reveals how the net-zero transition could exacerbate workplace gender inequalities.

You can find out more about the employment impacts of the transition to net-zero through a gender lens in this HeForShe X PwC article written by Divya Sridhar, Alexandra Lockyer, and Priyanka Kanani (authors of the PwC Women in Work Index 2022).

Read the article here