Milestones
Delivered by women, led by men
A report on gender and equity in the global health and social workforce
By N. Venugopalan (icsf@icsf.net), Programme Manager, ICSF Trust, Chennai, India
How do we address the question of inequality in global health infrastructure, especially during the pandemic grip of COVID-19? The report, produced by the WHO Global Health Workforce Network’s Gender Equity Hub is the latest gender and equity analysis on the health workforce looking collectively for the first time at issues of leadership: decent work free from all forms of discrimination and harassment, including sexual harassment; gender pay gap; and occupational segregation across the entire workforce.
The health sector is a major employer of women. Using a review of 170 studies from the global North, the report shows that there are major gaps in data and research from low and middle income countries (LMICs) with respect to the gender and equality dimensions of the health workforce.
The demand for a better health dividend shows that there is an estimated shortfall of 18 million new jobs in LMICs. The gender dividend argues that education and autonomy are likely to improve family education, nutrition, and women and children’s health. The development dividend argues that new opportunities will be created which will work as fuel for economic growth and universal health coverage.
This report calls for gender transformative policies and measures to be put in place if global targets for better health and gender outcomes are to be achieved. It serves as an essential resource to all policy makers, practitioners, researchers, educators and activists in the sector.
The report Delivered by Women, Led by Men: A Gender and Equity Analysis of the Global Health and Social Workforce’ may be downloaded from
https://www.who.int/hrh/resources/health-observer24/en/
