5.6%, is the percentage of women CEOs of the S&P 500. Ginni Rometty CEO of IBM or Meg Whitman CEO of HP represents a minority of women CEOs. According to the 1995 Human Development Report : 70 % of world's poor are Women. Even if this number is discuted, that’s a lot !
Women in the economy today - Injustice
In 2013 the male employment-to-population ratio was at 72.2% vs 47.1% for women. In most countries women earn on average 60 to 75 per cent of men’s wages. Gender differences in laws affect all women around the word, more than a half of the world societies restrict women in job opportunities.
Both in developed and developing economy, women do the caretaking, they have the responsibility of the household. According to unwomen.org, if women were paid as much as man, they could bring $17 Trillion in the economy...no need to make a war to find resources...Women are the next revolution in economy !
Ok but this situation isn’t new so how can we fix/improve it ?
Microfinance, a way to empower women
I know I know, I’m always talking about Microfinance but hear me out : most of non bancarised people, poor people in the world are women and one of the best ways to be independent and to be empowered is to work, either in a company or starting a business.
How to start a business ? First, you need to get a loan , and how do you get a loan without collaterals or without being bancarised ? you make a MICROLOAN ! Here it is again ( it’s a coincidence I promise ;) ).
And that’s what’s happening right now :
Women represent a large portion of world’s microloans and they are good borrowers and good payers so they are a better credit risk for banks !!](https://www.microfinancegateway.org/sites/default/files/mfg-en-paper-women-and-repayment-in-microfinance-mar-2009_0.pdf)
Moreover, women are not likely to spend “in a non-productive, short-term manner."
Muhammad Yunus (the “father of microcredit”) himself through his bank give close to 97% of his loans to poor women.
In fact, according to him
“Microfinance empowerd women by giving them some decision-making power and enhancing their overall socio-economic status”
Microfinance could then lead to a better gender equality !!
Here we are, a solution to empower women of this world, a solution **to resolve the gender inequality, a solution to improve the world wealth. **
Of course there are limits to this solution, women in some situation are not free to spend the loan money as they would like but that's still a tool to achieve this goal.
I’d like to finish this article with an example in Malawi :
Enala Banda a Malawi woman, with less than $2 a day was struggling to feed her family. She did 2 microloans in 2015 with the MicroLoan Foundation and “set up a small business selling tomatoes and fish”
With thoses microloans, her business grew by 300% and today she is starting a new business of shoes selling.
Microfinance is used as a tool to empower women. This way isn’t perfect but it’s a first step to improve gender equality. I’m working on a blockchain based solution to improve microfinance you can find more details in my post here !