Boosting Gender Equality Through ADB Trade Finance Partnerships

BOOSTING GENDER EQUALITY THROUGH ADB TRADE FINANCE PARTNERSHIPS

MAY 2018

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ISBN 978-92-9261-138-5 (print), 978-92-9261-139-2 (electronic)

Publication Stock No. TCS179171-2

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22617/TCS179171-2

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Contents

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Foreword

The Asian Development Outlook 2015 update (ADO 2015) Special Theme Chapter, Enabling Women, Energizing Asia, shows that despite notable progress, gender equality is an unfinished agenda. Notwithstanding rapid overall economic growth and gains in education and health, women’s workforce participation in the region dropped from 56% in 1990 to 49% in 2013. The female labor force participation rate varies from 16%–79% in Asia and the Pacific. The wage gap in developing Asia is not unusual, as women in the region earned 77% of average male earnings in 2005–2011; about the same as in the advanced economies.

In the Asia and Pacific region, despite some progress, women’s share in senior management in the public and private sectors is still poor, except in the People’s Republic of China, where it is 51%. In India, it is 19%, and only 7% in