 Hi, I'm Hannah Riley Bowles of the Harvard Kennedy School. I have the honor of moderating this session on hard-wiring gender parity in the new economy. We are on day four of the World Economic Forum's Jobs Reset Summit, and day four is focused on pathways toward equity, inclusion, and social justice. This session will be live-streamed for the first 30 minutes, and then we will shift to 10 minutes or so in private meeting mode. The question before this panel is, what can be done to address gender inequality in the recovery to the pandemic and then accelerate progress toward gender equality as the economy embarks on a new growth trajectory? More specifically, what we'd like to talk about is what is the potential for multi-stakeholder cross-sectoral collaboration to develop inclusive work arrangements that enhance gender parity over the long run? As people on this call already recognize, women's economic participation has been especially negatively affected by the pandemic. The sudden and sustained backflow of caregiving and early educational labor into the home has hit women more directly than men. Growing evidence suggests this is not only reducing women's participation in paid work, but actually motivating large numbers of women to withdraw from paid employment. Women, particularly underprivileged women, have also been disproportionately represented among those sectors hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as hospitality and retail and the informal sector. So women are not only strained by work-family conflicts, but also losing their jobs in higher numbers than men. Finally, COVID-19 is accelerating trends that the Fourth Industrial Revolution had already set in motion. And we need to ensure that women are prepared to contribute to the COVID-19, post-COVID-19 world of work. As shown on this graphic here, we have work to do to get women not only out of this pandemic, but into the slipstream of economic growth coming out of it. So let me, this graphic displays data from the Forum's Future of Jobs report integrated with data from the Global Gender Graph report. And so what you see is putting aside costs of the pandemic, there is work to be done to increase women's representation in projected areas of job growth, most acutely as illustrated here in employment categories, such as cloud computing and data and AI, although in other areas as well, marketing, sales, product development. So with that backdrop, I'd like to now turn to our distinguished panel of thought leaders who are going to carry us through this conversation. We are privileged to have with us here today Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation of Egypt and Co-Chair of the Closing the Gender Gap Accelerator in Egypt, which is a collaboration between the World Economic Forum and the Government of Egypt. We have Kim Kimbrough, Chief Economist at LinkedIn, and Lorraine Harriton, President and Chief Executive Officer of Catalyst. OK, so in order to hardwire gender parity in the new economy, strategies to advance women and girls need to account for how labor markets are evolving. Karen, I'm going to start with a question for you, because I anticipate that some of your research will provide a useful backdrop context for this conversation. You've done some analyses of LinkedIn data showing how labor market adaptations to the pandemic may actually be accelerating the shape of economic opportunity, particularly in terms of remote work. And this is relevant to gender, because traditional gender roles have constrained women's economic mobility by constraining their geographic mobility. So for instance, making it harder for women to move or relocate or even leave the home or travel for work or educational opportunities. So could you help us understand how the pandemic is changing the geography of work relationships and also how we might take those changes into account as we attempt to close gender gaps in economic opportunity looking forward? Absolutely. And Hannah, thanks again for moderating this really important panel. And everyone, I'm delighted to be here. So glad that LinkedIn could play a role here. So what we see at LinkedIn in particular is really a global perspective of the labor market. We have 700 million members across maybe 30 countries that encapsulate 55 million companies. So we really have quite a broad picture of the labor market. I wouldn't say it captures every sector in every way, but it's extremely broad. And one of the things that came out to us right away in terms of looking at the data as COVID-19 hit was a massive increase in the number of remote jobs suddenly that were being offered on our platform. So since March, I think we've seen a four-fold increase in the share of jobs on our platform that offer work from home or some kind of remote work. So that's just what jobs are offered. We're also seeing job seekers demonstrate a keen interest in remote work because, obviously, it gives you more flexibility, what we're about to talk about in a moment. And it can keep you safe. In a time of a health pandemic, obviously, people aren't really looking for a lot of face-to-face contact or having to travel far on public transport to get to work. So what we're seeing in terms of job seekers is two and a half times increase in the number of job seekers who are actually putting in their search filter. I want to work from home. I want remote work, working at a distance. So there's an increase on both ends, both in terms of supply and demand of labor. And I think it's really striking. Time will tell if it's permanent. My guess is that it's likely to be pretty sticky. And I think employers are going to realize there's some advantage to remote work. And certainly, job seekers and employees already see the advantage of it in terms of safety. And as you said, Hannah, quite rightfully, for women in particular, it offers an extra kind of lens or layer of flexibility in terms of geographical location that typically wasn't there before. It legitimizes the person who's not in the room for the meeting. So one of the things I'd like to say is I definitely feel what we're seeing with women is that this will offer an additional type of flexibility for them. Of course, it's available to men, too. But if I could just take a step back and share with you what we actually are seeing with women on our platform and how they're behaving, and I will tell you that honestly, it kind of broke my heart when suddenly in March and April, we saw women's share of hiring. So all the hiring that's happening on our platform and people are saying, yeah, I've changed a job. I'm now working someplace new or in a different role. Women just disappeared. They disappeared by three to four percentage points in terms of their hiring in March and April. And it coincided completely with the shutdown. And it was global. It wasn't just the US. It wasn't just the UK. It was Australia. It was France. It was Germany. It was Spain. It was everywhere. Even in developing countries where there's more of an underlying trend of women joining the workforce and there's a pretty strong upward movement in their share of hiring, it paused during the shutdown. So why does this worry me? In the near term, Hannah, as you said, it means that women are clearly bearing an unrecognized burden of if it's child care, elder care, if they're working, they're juggling more at home than they did before. Their daily routine is somewhat disrupted. And they're bearing the burden of that. In the long term, though, it's creating suboptimal choices for them. And a lot of them are retreating from work, not going after that next opportunity, or maybe they're just not even going after work at all. And they are stepping away from the labor force. And that's what we're starting to see in the US data with more than 70% of the people who exited the workforce in September were women. So of course the unemployment rate went down because people stopped looking, but it was mainly women. And that's just the US. So I really do think this is an important issue. I think your point on the flexibility around location is important. But I also wanna just say that women in general need a lot more intentional recognition of what they're going through. And I think the flexibility needs to be geographic, but it also needs to meet women where they are in terms of how do we think about the hours in the day? How do we think about FaceTime? How do we think about support by companies? I mean, they need to step up and be intentional if they wanna maintain women in the workforce. So I'll stop here and turn it back over to you. That's great. I love your phrase intentional because our two other panelists talk about intentional work. So Minister Amishad, I'd like to turn to you next as someone who is engaged in leading a public-private collaboration to close gender gaps. And I'd love to hear your perspective on what do you see as the most promising multi-stakeholder initiatives to accelerate the post-pandemic recovery for women, but then also to prepare women and girls to be full participants in the highest growth areas of the post-COVID-19 economy. Thank you very much, Hannah and everyone on the panel. Let me just, before I talk about the current platforms because what governments do ahead of where we are today is what paves the way for a possible either recovery or even push further with reforms. So Egypt has a woman empowerment strategy that was initiated in 2017 with certain targets, economic empowerment, political empowerment, social empowerment. And then when the COVID hit, we were able to very quickly have gender sensitive policies around COVID. And given the, we were the first country to have a policy tracker. And in a very recent report two weeks ago, UNDP put Egypt as the first, I mean, the number one country in the Middle East and West Asia with 21 measures related to women during COVID. It's about economic security, unpaid care and violence against women. So there are 21 measures that took place. Now, the other very important point when we talk about the labor market and it is the narrative around it. And it's very, very important to quantify things. People feel that women issues are sometimes an afterthought or something that is added on. But when we quantify situations and we quantify indicators, it makes sense so that the policies are pushed and when they are pushed from the top, they are actually finding resonance for the other stakeholders that are engaged. So for instance, in our case, if we have gender parity, GDP goes up by 34%. Who wouldn't want the GDP to go up at a time when we have a slowdown because of COVID? So that's very, very important. Now comes what have we done in order to create that platform? This pandemic has made us all realize that no one can do it on its own. No country can withstand the effects of the pandemic by itself and no government can withstand it without the participation of private sector and the participation of civil society. So this is what we saw when it came to healthcare provision. This is what we saw when it came to the social safety nets. And therefore, and here I want to mention the closing the gender gap accelerator which we have with the World Economic Forum, Ministry of International Cooperation, the National Council for Women are co-chairs, but then we have co-chairs from the private sector. We started this work before the pandemic and the idea was to be able to create opportunities for women in employment in general, more leadership positions, and then equip them with technology. Now we added another principle or another objective which has to do with the post COVID world. But this is a very important platform because the policies that we are devising are not just top bottom. They include the private sector and they're very much needed to be able to propagate the message because at the end of the day, no government can employ all its labor force, whether men or women. The government should lead by example and here I want to give the example for the government. We have a very big public service, public servant sector, around 4 million employees when the pandemic hit very quickly there was a decree where women who are either pregnant or have children younger than 12 years old could work from home anytime. Now that education is three days a week for children, the president now is discussing how laws can be changed so that this could be provided as work from home legislated for women. So these are all very important messages. The government sort of has the political will but the stakeholders have to come together. As Ministry of International Cooperation, we also deal with all Egypt's multilateral and bilateral development partners and therefore this accelerator acts as a platform not just for private sector civil society but the international community as well. So anyone who has a policy direction on women, anyone who has a funding ambition to help women, this provides a very nice platform, very well articulated objectives and then the impact is something that we can assess as well. So all I'm saying is public policy is important. There's a realization you can do it on your own. You have to be inclusive with the other stakeholders whether they're the international community, your private sector or civil society. Thank you so much, Minister Amishad. I also, we have just been joined by a fourth panelist, Marcello Cabrol who is the head of the social sector at the Inter-American Development Bank and building perfectly on your last points which I love about one, what a payoff there is in a time of crisis if you've already started integrating, if you already have policies and collaborations in place with regard to promoting gender equality but then also emphasizing beyond cross-sectoral collaboration within country also bringing in international collaboration. Marcello, you have been a partner in collaborations between the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Economic Forum to launch a gender gap accelerator for Latin America and the Caribbean as well. And you've also been a leader in expanding educational opportunity. So I'd love to turn to you to hear your perspective building on the minister in terms of what types of public, private, multi-stakeholder initiatives you would like to see to hardwire gender parity into the pandemic recovery and the new economy, again, both for women and for girls. Of course, I have to apologize. I mean, I think that after seven months I'm still not mastering the issue of technology and how to connect quickly and safely. So my apologies for being late. Simply to answer your question, I think that we need to be in the short term, we need to do three or four things that are important and that's what we're working here, especially in Latin America in which basically we are losing now around 30 million jobs during the seven months and 60 to 65% have been jobs that were held by women. So that's the situation that we have. So there are three things that we are doing practically to move very quickly in this period that is between the recovery and still dealing with the crisis. First of all, we are looking at childcare issues and this seems to be a small thing but it's a very large thing in this moment. Childcare of course, in the sense, not only childcare but also senior care and the possibilities that we have there to actually create not only the basis for recovery but also formal jobs moving forward. And formal jobs not only for women but also to give women the capacity and the possibility of moving forward in the labor market and have a better participation in the labor force. Something that we are also lacking here in Latin America. So I think that that's an important part. It's not that we were not doing this before is that we need to potentiate this moving forward. The second important thing is that look at recovery and look at what kind of government intervention we're gonna have in which kind of industries. And there's a real danger that we go into the boosting industries that are not necessarily friendly to female or women participation in the labor force. So as we are advising and now with the governments and planning within the recovery, we are insisting in the possibilities of looking at those industries that will have an equal opportunity for women to work on. And I think that the last part is during the crisis we have especially in Latin America the Caribbean and expansion of programs of transfers and unemployment insurance. We are looking at how to create from that platform at the possibility for women from welfare to work. And as we see in the past in past crisis these movements are not necessarily proportionally good for women when we do it. So we are looking at incentives and mechanisms to move from welfare to work but always trying to put women back to work. Remember 65% of our employment were health women and we need to recover them. Thank you very much. That is such an important perspective. I wanna turn now to Lorraine. Lorraine at Catalyst your mission is to accelerate progress for women through workplace inclusion. And I'd really love to hear your perspective on the advice that you're giving major employers not only to keep women employed but to keep them on track for top leadership positions. Hannah, thank you so much. And thank you all for these amazing remarks. It's really great. I think in your opening remarks you talked about the risks and the heavy impact that this COVID-19 has had on women. On the other hand, in the corporate sector in particular we're seeing incredible commitment and intentionality to build back better, more equitable, inclusive and diverse world. So there's really four strategies that we're recommending to leaders to accomplish that agenda. And the first is to really around leadership at the top that it needs to be visible. It needs to be intentional. There needs to be real commitment to walk the walk not just talk the talk. And we did a survey in June if you're interested you can go to our website that revealed what we call the optimism gap. Well, eight out of 10 companies and leaders are talking about wanting to really focus on both gender and diversity. In the United States the survey is particularly around people of color that many of the employees do not really believe that they're actually gonna do what's needed. And that's especially around people of color. And it's really important to really understand the issues of intersectionality and the nuances around the actual experiences of everyone and their intersection identities as we look to put programs and policies together to address them. The second area is around measurement and accountability. You can't get what you don't measure. You can't improve it. And of course the World Economic Forum has been very focused on this and just about a month ago of the International Business Council released a comprehensive set of ESG metrics with the hope of universal adoption of these metrics. So catalyst in conjunction with a group of DEI advocacy organizations with the support of 61 multinational companies including the four major accounting firms launched the Gender and Diversity KPI Alliance so GDKA to support the specific DEI metrics focused on representation and pay equity at every level in the corporation with the intent of both educating and promoting adoption of a consistent set of metrics. So we want to have these KPIs as a first level so that the boards, the CEOs and the C-suite really has a first level of accountability. And of course there's a whole range of metrics below that that deal with policy and practices but this is a way to start. And we've put the information in the chat www.gdka.org if you want to come along on the journey and move this initiative forward. The third area is around having effective policies and practices that will enable women to succeed. Now, there's three that I wanna mention the first one is flexibility and COVID has really enabled that. That's why I think we're optimistic that flexible and remote which has long been an initiative for women in the workplace and been a key strategy for all the work we're doing on the future of work is really happening and we need to come out of this with a really long-term strategy to incorporate that as many of you have already talked about and it's critical for companies if they wanna attract, retain and make most productive their best talent to really embrace that in a productive way. The second area we already talked about is the tremendous burden on working parents and particularly working mothers as we look at the school closures and remote work. So companies really need to lean in to having more flexible PTO and backup childcare to address this current crisis or they will have the women in particular leave the workforce and it's gonna be much more expensive than them to bring them back in and to hire new talent. So they really need to look at the cost of this. In fact, I just put an op-ed in Fortune magazine yesterday it was published and it talked about five ways that companies can really address this. And the third area I wanna mention is about upskilling and reskilling. There's gonna be a lot of that because we're moving to more digital but soft skills are also critical to that. This is an opportunity for us to build back equitably and we need to, with real great intentionality look at how we upskill everyone with an equity lens. And the last area to talk about is building an inclusive workplace culture where everyone can survive. We all talk a lot about inclusivity. One of the superpowers around that is empathy and empathy can be taught and it needs to be taught across the whole organization because 45% of building an inclusive culture has to do with that first line manager. And those are the people who need to understand the lived experiences, the people work for them and build that flexibility down at the job level and allow people to be able to articulate their situation so you can manage it. One of the things came out of our parenting study is that many of the people do not want to talk about their situation, talk about the childcare. So is there afraid they're gonna lose the job? Is it afraid it's not gonna be promoted? So you need to be able to have that empathy and trust to understand that. And the last area I wanna mention around inclusive cultures is allyship. We have a program called Mark, Men Advocating Real Change which helps men get involved in solving this problem around gender equity and understand the innate biases and privilege and then become allies to helping women and other underserved groups really reach their full potential. And we'd like to invite any of you to go to our first Mark virtual summit that will be on December 3rd and 4th and we'll put that in the chat as well. So there's a lot of opportunity here to build back better. There is, I agree. And I love how you're coming back to empathy and that was so transparent in Kim's initial reactions to the data that she was watching. I think when I'm taking away a few high level points from this conversation as we approach the bottom the hour is keeping our eye on the data. So watching the data, the differential effects on gender but also how markets are shifting so that we're making sure that whatever policies that we're putting in place are actually creating long-term economic opportunity for women as male as men. And then I think my two keywords I'm gonna take away are intentional and accountable. So I'm getting a lot of plus ones on this idea we need to make sure that we're watching those numbers and following through. But above the points also that have been made about being intentional within organizations, being intentional about cross-sectoral collaboration, public policy, but also the integration of the international community. So at this point in the program I would on behalf of the panel like to thank our global audience for joining us. We hope that you are able to put some of these ideas to use in your own important work to promote women, girls and gender equality over the long run.