Gender Equality in Healthcare - How Much Is Gender Imbalance Costing Our Economy?

Gender Equality in Healthcare - How Much Is Gender Imbalance Costing Our Economy?

Paying The Price of Imbalance

The price of being a woman is something that’s often discussed in the media – unrealistic beauty standards, sexual harassment, and poorer financial stability but to name a few – but perhaps the question we should be asking is, ‘What’s the price of maintaining this gender imbalance?’

 

Elgart (1983) predicted that it may take around 200 years for corporate boards to achieve equal gender representation, based on the 10-year growth rate of female directors’ ranks in Fortune 500 companies. The reason for this imbalance, 43% of the boards claim, was that they were “already filled with qualified candidates”, with a further 35% stating the “difficulty in finding experientially qualified candidates”.

 

At HerFinance QUB, these reasons don’t convince us. 

 

The National Center for Education Statistics (2011) reports that over the past 30 years, women have earned the majority of bachelor's, postgraduate and doctoral degrees. So why aren’t our highly educated women getting their fair share of leadership opportunities?

The Healthcare Industry - A Glimmer of Hope for Women in Leadership

 

The current health expenditure (CHE) as a percentage of GDP in the UK grew from 6.3% in 2001 to 9.6% in 2017 – an increase of over 50% in 16 years (World Health Organization, 2020a). 

 

It's no surprise that healthcare is a rapidly growing industry, particularly in the UK and Northern Ireland due to our unique publicly-funded National Health System (NHS). Globally, 10% of GDP (or $7.2 trillion USD) was spent on health in 2015 (World Health Organisation, 2020b). If we can make the healthcare industry more efficient by improving diversity at the top levels of leadership, there is money to be won.

 

However, although the percentage of female workers employed by the healthcare industry is almost 50% (McKinsey & Company, 2016), there is an issue with the types of jobs women hold.  Women dominate the lower-level professions in healthcare, taking up roles as care workers, nurses and social workers which are much lower paid. These positions have an annual median pay of £17 200, compared to managerial or medical leadership positions which average £41 000 and are less often filled by women.

Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2017) depicts the situation of females in medicine very well:

 

 

 

 

The Barriers To Equality 

Gendered Work

Mulhearn & Vane (2016) describe the concept of gendered work as a barrier for women in the workplace, which most often “incline against employment opportunities for women”. For example, driving a bus is often socially regarded as “men’s work”. The same is true for doctors and nurses – generally, we think of doctors as being male, while nurses are female. Guess who gets the bigger pay check?

McKinsey & Company (2016)

Societal norms

Men’s overconfidence is another contributing factor to the equation. Some might think of overconfidence as a positive thing, but Hillier, D. (2017) describes serious errors in judgement in business decisions as a result of it. The definition of overconfidence, believing your abilities are better than they really are, highlights how men can secure positions they are not actually experienced or educated enough to fill, out-competing women as a result. 

A second interesting finding the author found was that women generally perform better than men in high-level decisions such as financial trading as they are less likely to take risks that are not based on concrete evidence.

Caring Responsibilities

According to a McKinsey & Company (2020), three quarters of unpaid work globally is done by women, work which includes the very things that keep society and households running – childcare, geriatric care, and housekeeping. Women historically completed these tasks, and we at HerFinance QUB believe this shouldn’t still be happening in 2020.

 

I reached out to Sinead McLaughlin, MLA for Foyle, to hear her views in relation to the Northern Ireland Childcare Strategy, a motion her party SDLP presented to the Northern Ireland Assembly in March 2020.

“This year has shone a light on gender balance in the economy and the hurdles that women experience just to participate. Covid 19 has had an enormous impact on female participation in the economy. Childcare and caring roles have predominantly fallen to women and has lessened their ability to fulfil their work. Women tend to be most dominant in the lower paid sectors, hospitality, retail etc and have been particularly impacted as a result of covid lockdown.”

McLaughlin’s description of women being unable to complete full-time work due to care responsibilities is based on recent evidence from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (2018), showing that 82% of part-time employees in NI are women.

 

 

The Economic Impact 

$12-28 trillion USD.

 

That’s how much the global economy could increase by by 2025 if gender parity was achieved. (McKinsey Global Institute, 2020). Although women make up half of the world’s population, they generate only 37% of GDP globally, leaving plenty of room for improvement. (Ref) also predict that in same amount of time in the UK, the economy could increase by £150 billion if we got that percentage closer to 50.

 

So gender balance isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the financially smart thing to do. 

There’s an incentive to bridge the gap!

 

Aoibhinn Loughlin, MSc Management, Queen's University Belfast.

Reference List

 

 

Elgart, L.D. 1983, "Women on "Fortune" 500 Boards", California Management Review (pre-1986), vol. 25, no. 000004, pp. 121.

 

Hillier, D. (2017), Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, McGraw-Hill UK Higher Ed, London. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [Accessed 2 October 2020].

 

McKinsey & Company. 2016. The Power Of Parity: Advancing Women’s Equality In The United Kingdom. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com. [Accessed 13 October 2020].

 

McKinsey & Company. 2020. The power of gender parity for business and the economy | McKinsey . [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/overview/in-the-news/the-power-of-gender-parity-for-business-and-the-economy. [Accessed 19 October 2020].

 

McKinsey Global Institute. 2020. The Power Of Parity: How Advancing Women’s Equality Can Add $12 Trillion To Global Growth. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Public%20and%20Social%20Sector/Our%20Insights/How%20advancing%20womens%20equality%20can%20add%2012%20trillion%20to%20global%20growth/MGI%20Power%20of%20parity_Full%20report_September%202015.pdf. [Accessed 5 October 2020].

 

Mulhearn, C. and Vane, H. R. (2016) Economics for Business. London, [England]: Palgrave Macmillan. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com.queens.ezp1.qub.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1524021&site=ehost-live (Accessed: 19 October 2020).

 

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). 2011. "Degrees Earned (Indicator 26-2011)." The Condition of Education. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/ indicator_dcd

 

Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. 2018. Women in Northern Ireland 2018. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.nisra.gov.uk/system/files/statistics/Women%20in%20NI%20-%20December%202018.pdf. [Accessed 18 October 2020].

 

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2017), "Graph 22.4 - Although women make up less than half of all doctors OECD-wide, their share is growing: Female share of doctors, 2000 and 2015 or latest available", in The Pursuit of Gender Equality – An Uphill Battle, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264281318-graph87-en.

 

World Health Organisation (WHO), 2020a, “Current health expenditure (CHE) as percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) (%)” . [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/current-health-expenditure-(che)-as-percentage-of-gross-domestic-product-(gdp)-(-). [Accessed 11 October 2020].

 

World Health Organization (WHO), 2020b. WHO | Current health expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). [ONLINE] Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20181019115110/http://www.who.int/gho/health_financing/health_expenditure/en/. [Accessed 11 October 2020].