Coinciding with the week of 8M, the Government plans to bring a law to the Council of Ministers tomorrow to guarantee that parity is complied with in governments and in the management of large companies, raising the share of the underrepresented gender to 40%. The Executive considers that the companies that have greater diversity in their decision-making bodies have better economic results.
“Empirical evidence tells us that the countries that have greater gender equality are more advanced countries, which have better economic resultsin the same way that companies that have greater diversity in their decision-making bodies have better economic results”, stated the First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, at an event focused on women and digitization held this Monday in Madrid.
The objective is to give a push to the companies so that they reach those quotas in a reasonable calendar. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced last Saturday a law to guarantee that parity is complied with in future governments, whatever their political sign, and in the management of large companies.
For Calvino, gender equality and the economy have to go hand in hand not only because of a question of human rights and social justice but also because talent is equally distributed throughout the population. “We cannot afford to waste the talent of 50% of our population,” she stressed.
The Government’s economic head has highlighted that Spain is a paradigmatic example of what can be achieved in 40 years of democracy in terms of gender equality, although she has recognized that much remains to be done. In this sense, she understands that digitization and digital transformation -which have accelerated exponentially as a result of the Covid pandemic- are a “fundamental” instrument to advance gender equality.
The problem of companies to find talent
The vice-president highlighted the progress that this digital impulse has brought, compared to those who warned a few years ago that machines and artificial intelligence were going to put an end to human work and Spain was going to suffer an unemployment problem for this reason. “However, in all the meetings we have with the companies, what they tell us is that it is necessary to find talent, that talent must be developed and that there is a lack of adequately qualified professionals“, he pointed out.
The Government’s economic officer has indicated that very important measures have been taken in Spain to continue accelerating this process of closing gaps, such as the equalization of maternity and paternity benefits, the improvement of the interprofessional minimum wage or the labor reform that “dignifies and increases the participation of women in the field of full-time permanent employment”. Lastly, the Vice President underlined the “strong commitment” of the Executive to make visible “extraordinary women, who in the technological field are marking the future day after day and opening the way for others”.
