Empowering Women Spurs Global Economic Growth

Karla Jones, Sr. Director of Federalism, Homeland Security and International Relations at ALEC is joined by Michelle Bekkering, National Engagement Director at the US Global Leadership Coalition. A longtime advocate for women’s empowerment and equality, Michelle was a leading architect of the White House led Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative which was a whole of government project to economically empower 50 million women worldwide by 2025.

We often think of gender equality in moral and sociological terms, but it’s an economic issue too. Global GDP suffers when women are not empowered. A 2015 McKinsey Global Institute study predicted that $12 trillion could be added to global GDP in a decade if each country in a specific region matched the progress in the best performing country in the region. They concluded that 26% could be added to global GDP in 10-years if full gender parity were achieved, which probably isn’t achievable due to individual choices. The study speaks to the fact that countries that don’t strive toward gender parity are going to suffer economically.