Gender Barriers Essay

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Gender Barriers and Opportunities

Development in a country is hard to achieve when only half of the population is contributing and the other half of the population is without economic, political rights, and education. Yet women staying home and raising children is still a popular cultural and religious norm. Its also hard to achieve success when there’s a discriminatory law against you which disallows women to progress more profitable businesses or manage more productive farms and open a bank account. Fortunately there are organizations trying to break down these barriers to achieve equality. Also more girls than ever before are going to school, this will help lift people out of poverty and help develop the country.

Barriers and opportunities …show more content…

These barriers manifest themselves in different ways but they all contribute to a standstill in development. Cultural or religious normality’s may block the role of women. This in turn leaves half the population without economic, political rights, and education. This undercuts half the population 's ability to contribute to the overall development. Along with this, if women don’t work it also halves the earning capability. Additionally, when women don’t work they stay home and raise children; these women have more children compared to their counterparts who are in the labour force. Countries that have the greatest population are countries where women aren’t involved in business or society. Some countries have seen their population double or triple without their economies keeping pace, that leaves more mouths to feed, and just not enough to go around. Having more children puts a burden on the family because more resources are required to provide for them, but there is less money to help because there is only one income flowing into the household. To be able to provide often times sacrifices must be made, sacrifices such as, the oldest child dropping out of school early to get a job; this continues the cycle of poverty because this child doesn’t have the education necessary to get a job that provides stable amount of income. However when there 's fewer children a poor household doesn’t have to make …show more content…

This decreases the economy of their country. Along with decreasing the potential these women have to progress in their field of work and well being. Although not many women do choose to join the labour force, which explains the large gender gap among entrepreneur, farmers, and employees alike. The participation of women working has declined even from 57 to 55 percent globally and has stayed around 25 percent in the middle East and North Africa. When women do choose to join the labour force they farm less, produce less productive plots, own smaller businesses that create fewer jobs, work in less profitable sectors, and face discriminatory laws and norms that constrain their time and choices. Discriminatory laws affect women 's ability to own or inherit property, open a bank account, or access the technology, credit, or fertilizer required to progress more profitable businesses or manage more productive farms. Even if women are given the opportunity to have the same job as a man she still wouldn’t receive the same income as him, the ILO found that in 83 countries women earned on average 10-30 percent less than men. Another opportunity women are missing out on is bank account ownership, in 2011, 47 percent of women owned a bank account compared to 54 percent of men; in 2014, the gap between women and men only increased, 58 percent of women had an

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