The World Economic Forum says that women are set to suffer the most as the cost of living skyrockets, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
The outlet covered the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap Report, which measures gender gaps and progress in closing them, including in four main areas, such as “health and survival” and “economic participation.”
This year, it looked at 146 countries — and touched on the global rising cost of living.
“The cost of living crisis is impacting women disproportionately” because of the pandemic’s impact on labor and lack of access to “care infrastructure,” said Saadia Zahidi, managing director at the World Economic Forum, said in a release accompanying the report.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics published data Wednesday showing that consumer prices jumped 9.1 percent in June compared to last year, the highest since November 1981.
Fuel, food, and housing were big culprits, the agency added.
The report added that conflict, such as the invasion of Ukraine, and climate change “impact women disproportionately.” With an additional cost of living crisis, women are slated to struggle more as they “continue to earn and accumulate wealth at lower levels,” the report said.
Women left the workforce and powered growth in entrepreneurship, Insider reported, adding it was often by necessity.
Zahidi recommended that governments help women get back to work and train for industries that are important to future economic growth “otherwise, we risk eroding the gains of the last decades permanently and losing out on the future economic returns of diversity,” she told the outlet.
The report estimated that it will take 132 years to close the gender gap, down slightly from 136 last year.
It also ranked countries in terms of what percent closed their gender gaps are, and Iceland was at the top for the 13th year in a row, the report said. The US ranked at 27.