Happy International Women’s Day! Occurring for well over a century, International Women’s Day (IWD) is a worldwide event bringing together people of every gender, age, ethnicity, race, religion and country, to drive actions that will create the gender-equal world everyone deserves.
The theme for IWD 2021 is #ChooseToChallenge – a challenged world is an alert world and from challenge comes change.
Gender equality is essential for economies and communities to thrive. In 2020, The World Economic Forum stated that while average gender parity had improved in all areas since 2019, a further 99.5 years would be needed to close the gap, if the current trends continued. However, recent data from UN Women has revealed the Covid-19 pandemic could wipe out 25 years of increasing gender equality. This last year has seen women take on greater domestic duties/family care due to the pandemic which has in turn impacted job and educational opportunities. Many women work part-time and it is these roles that have been most affected, and in the UK studies have shown women are more likely to have been furloughed.
The challenges of the last year mean that more than ever we need to collectively work together and help accelerate the move to gender equality, and champion change together.
Rowe Advisory’s CEO, Jody Rowe, commented “I’m extremely proud of Rowe Advisory providing women with flexible working choices. This has allowed the business to gain access to a pool of talent that may otherwise have difficulty working due to family commitments, and this has been felt more so during the Covid-19 pandemic. At Rowe Advisory we are committed to achieving an inclusive and equal society, and positively challenging gender bias and inequality.”