By Stephanie Kelly

IN the workplace, the diversity and inclusion debate usually centres on the importance of social justice. But there's a powerful efficiency argument too. Increasing equality at work can improve productivity by making better use of human capital, lift incomes and long-term economic growth.

Women tend to be as well-educated (or more) as their male counterparts in most developed countries. Yet, they are more likely to face a trade-off between accepting paid or unpaid work, whilst considering caring responsibilities. Consequently, women are less attached to the workforce and when they do work, they do fewer average hours, fuelling the gender gaps in pay, progress and opportunities.

This has also been exacerbated by the pandemic. Lockdowns have hit hardest at low-paid service-sector jobs typically filled by women and their unpaid caring responsibilities have increased.

Governments and employers therefore have a responsibility in promoting equality in the workplace. Our research has identified five clear actions.

1, Ensure men have access to paternity leave so the burden of child-related career breaks is more evenly shared. A one-week increase in paternity leave on average increases female participation by around 3%. The benefits seem to peak at about seven weeks but continue to have net positive effects for many months thereafter. But, higher paternity leave entitlements are only part of the solution as there's still work to be done to incentivise men to take their entitlements.

2, Reduce tax for second earners and sole parents. Women tend to be the second earners in dual-income households and are more likely to be single parents. In many countries, such as Canada, Australia and Germany, there is a higher tax burden on second earners and on sole parents which is associated with lower female labour-force participation. Governments should remove this barrier by levelling the playing field between primary and second earners and single parents.

3, Consider both quantity and quality of female work to offer more flexibility. Given the trade-off women face between caring responsibilities and working, flexible and part-time employment are crucial in keeping women connected to the workforce.

4, Strengthen the performance and resilience of the overall economy. We found three economic factors positively linked with female workforce participation: countries' economic output; education; and male labour-force participation. This reinforces the importance of sound economic policy aimed at steady, long-term growth. As deep recessions caused by Covid have shown, women are more likely than men to be forced from the workplace in times of economic weakness.

5, Report more, higher-quality data. There's a sparsity of good-quality, company-level data on diversity and inclusion policies. Existing legislation needs to be strengthened and expanded in scope. Without adequate information, we can't fully understand what works in terms of improving diversity and inclusion, and how that affects corporate performance.

If anything good comes from the pandemic, let it be that it galvanises governments and employers to act swiftly to make the workplace more welcoming for women. In terms of both social fairness and economic efficiency, it's the right thing to do.

Stephanie Kelly is Senior Political Economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments