According to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap 2022 report, Kazakhstan has improved its performance on gender inequality and climbed in the global ranking from 80th to 65th place. This is reported by El.kz with reference to the press service of the Ministry of Labor of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
At the current rate of reduction in gender inequality, it will take 132 years for the world to achieve full parity. Iceland’s near neighbours Finland, Norway and Sweden dominate the top five
According to the global gender inequality index, Kazakhstan is "next door" and is slightly inferior in the ranking to countries such as Italy, Israel, Georgia and Singapore, but ahead of Slovakia, Mongolia, the Czech Republic, Poland or Armenia. In the countries of Central Asia, Kazakhstan ranks 4th.
"Experts note that the greatest achievement of Kazakhstan within the framework of the criteria under consideration is full equality in access to school and vocational education for women and men. Also, high scores were obtained on the criterion of health protection and survival, which take into account the average healthy life expectancy and gender equality at birth. According to these indicators, we were placed in 27th and 44th places, respectively, " Alexandra Molchanovskaya, Managing Director of the Center for The Development of Labor Resources said.
In terms of opportunities in the labour market, Kazakhstan ranks 46th in terms of equality of wages for the same work, 51st in terms of labour force participation and 1st in terms of equal representation of women among highly skilled and medium-skilled workers.
"It should be noted that according to the criterion of equal access to political rights and opportunities, the country is on the 103rd place out of 146 countries. Such low rates are typical for all central Asian countries. This means the need for greater involvement of women in the highest political representative and executive bodies," Alexandra Molchanovskaya emphasized.
At the same time, according to the analysis of existing electronic labor contracts in the context of professions, women form the main backbone of highly qualified professionals in Kazakhstan. However, the ratio of women to men in decision-making positions is much lower. Also, the number of women who are engaged in low-skilled labor is significantly greater than men. In addition, there is a significant dominance of men in agriculture, construction, industry and transport.
Considering the incomes of workers, the average salary of men is significantly higher than that of women in the main groups of occupations. For example, male executives earn on average 12.4% higher than female executives. Despite the large number of women in the group of "professional specialists", their remuneration is less by 29.0% than that of men. The largest gap falls on "workers in industry, construction, transport", where the average earnings of men are higher by 69% compared to women.