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While many gender parity efforts have focused on the supply side of future-skills for girls and women, there have been few demand side efforts to create incentives for women and girls to enrol in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education programmes or to create an accelerated pathway for women to be hired into the highest-growth roles of the future—particularly those applying STEM skills. As labour markets go through a period of intense change there is a unique opportunity to embed parity into the future by balancing efforts between the demand side of growing jobs and the supply side of future-ready skills.

The World Economic Forum’s Platform for Shaping the New Economy and Society aims to provide a solution through the “Hardwiring Gender Parity into the Future of Work” initiative, starting with a business commitment framework. The framework aims to ensure that women are equally represented in all phases of the talent pipeline in emerging roles by asking companies to:

  • Identify their top five emerging high-growth roles, including high-volume roles and leadership roles
  • Recruit 50% female talent into their top five emerging high-growth roles by 2022, across all seniority levels
  • Develop a strong gender-equal reward system by 2022 that addresses unconscious bias and includes equal pay and equal opportunities

Starting with a target of 50 pioneering companies over the course of 2020, the initiative aims to expand in the future to cover a variety of professions and skills, engage a wider range of global and local companies, and better connect supply and demand side initiatives.

The Future of Gender Parity Appendix A: Regional Classifications
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