The review of the National Development Plan (NDP) 2021-2025 in view of women’s economic empowerment has commenced.
The review, which includes bridging the existing 23% gender pay gap, would identify policies that could be used to breach the gap in the country.
National President, Nigerian Economic Society (NES), Prof. Ummu Jalingo, said it is estimated that women earn 77% of what men earn while women spend around 2.5 times more time on unpaid care and domestic work than men.
She said women need to know their rights to enable them to negotiate for better pay by attaining certain privileges enclosed in hiring schemes that women are yet to explore.
She said this at a one-day technical review of the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) components of the NDP in Abuja, organised by a coalition of 15 women-led Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Partnership for Advancing Women in Economic Development (PAWED) and Development Research and Project Center (DRPC).
Her words: “The gender wage gap is estimated to be 23%. This means that women earn 77% of what men earn, though these figures understate the real extent of gender pay gaps, particularly in developing countries where informal self-employment is prevalent. Women tend to spend around 2.5 times more time on unpaid care and domestic work than men.
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“What I said are facts not just to drum up support for women. When women know their rights they can negotiate their pay and sometimes there are certain privileges that are enclosed in our hiring schemes that women need to explore, you can have some degree with your counterpart but for some reason, he will have better negotiation skills and upscale you, when we look at this, we feel this are areas that we feel women should be very conscious of when it comes to hiring for instance in organisations.
“They should also look at best practices in other climes for instance when it comes to hiring different people of both genders and we know that we are productive and women take maternity leaves that make them stay off the jobs, these are things that organizations should put in place and these are done in some societies where paternity leave is also given to male counterparts. So we look at the National Development Plan as it affects women economic empowerment and reviews it to see the extent of some of the gaps that we hope to identify could be breached.”
Executive director DRPC, Dr. Judith-Ann Walker said the analysis meeting was designed as a training session to equip and empower women’s economic development associations with technical skills and knowledge to be able to conduct technical analysis of government’s policies and programs.
She added, “At the end of the meeting, the representatives will be able to apply their new skills to state-level economic policies and programs to assess responsiveness to women’s needs and challenges in business.”