Improvement in empowerment of women

The MasterCard index is part of a sustained effort by the company to measure the socio-economic standing of women across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.
It comprises five indicators: business ownership, business and government leadership, workforce participation, regular employment opportunities and tertiary education. Each indicator measures the ratio of women to every 100 men in each of the 14 Asia-Pacific markets covered by the research.
A score under 100 indicates gender inequality in favour of males, while a score above 100 indicates inequality in favour of females.
Front-runners among the 14 Asia-Pacific markets are Australia and New Zealand with overall scores of 83.3 and 83.1, respectively. Following close behind are the Philippines (77.8), Singapore (77.4) and Vietnam (75), while India (48.4), South Korea (63.5) and Japan (64.8) round off the other end of the spectrum.
Thailand ranks in sixth place with a score of 74.6.
Enrolment rates for Thai women in tertiary institutions surpass those for Thai men, with a score of 133.2, while regular employment opportunities and workforce participation result in scores of 95.2 and 79.9, respectively.
However, the index shows that Thai women still lag well behind men in terms of business owners (38.5) and business and government leaders (36).
Moving towards a level playing field in terms of workforce participation and regular employment opportunities, workforce participation rates for women were healthy across most markets, with eight averaging over 70 women for every 100 men in the workforce.
Although Thailand’s numbers show that Thai women still lag men in terms of workforce participation and regular employment opportunities, the scores are still acceptable at 92.5 for the former and 79.9 for the latter, MasterCard said.
However, female Asia-Pacific business owners still require greater economic and social empowerment, it added. Thirteen of the 14 markets included in the research had fewer than 50 female business owners for every 100 male business owners.
In Thailand, according to the research, there were only 38.5 female business owners for every 100 male counterparts.
There is also much room for growth in encouraging women to take up positions as business and government leaders.
According to the latest index, only six markets had at least 50 women business/government leaders for every 100 male counterparts.
Across the 14 Asia-Pacific markets, the Philippines (192.3) was the only market that achieved gender parity in this area. New Zealand (77.1), Australia (73.1) India (65.8) and Singapore (65.5) also had a reasonably high proportion of women to men in business/government leadership positions.
Markets that scored especially low in this category include Japan (15), South Korea (17.3) and China (24).
Thailand scored in the middle of the chart (36), which is about the same rate as in Taiwan (34.3) and Vietnam (32.7).
MasterCard’s research on women’s advancement has shown that while more women have access to job opportunities and tertiary education, there is still room for improvement, especially when it comes to women taking top positions in government or business.
Georgette Tan, group head, Communications, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, said the results showed that across the key indicators in most markets women are progressing.
Big steps are being taken in terms of workforce participation and regular employment opportunities, which is encouraging news, she said, adding that this is especially inspiring for the people who champion women’s entrepreneurship and empowerment as it shows that even in challenging times societies are taking these issues seriously.
“Women’s socio-economic advancement starts at the basic level – from fostering confidence in girls through education, to giving women skills development and regular employment opportunities.
“In line with our commitment to this cause, MasterCard has recently launched Project Inspire, a year-long digital and social media-driven initiative centred on the theme of advancing women’s entrepreneurship, the objective being to engage the minds of young social entrepreneurs through a competition to bring out the best ideas to support women’s empowerment.
“Such initiatives help raise awareness around the important role of women in societies in the APMEA [Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa] region, and ultimately improve their socio-economic standing,” she said.