Dashboard map for 2022 SDG Index Goal #5 ratings. Data source: sdgindex.org
Demand for family planning is satisfied by modern methods (% of females aged 15 to 49)
This indicator measures women of reproductive age (15 to 49) whose demand for family planning is being met using modern methods of contraception, aiming to meet 100% of demand by 2030.
Sub-Saharan Africa has major challenges remaining, according to the 2022 SDG Index. As do most of the Islamic republics, most of the countries in the Middle East, as well as the Balkans, and a couple of Latin American and Southeast Asian countries.
The lack of availability in sub-Saharan Africa ought to be clear by the implications of extreme poverty, disallowing the affordability of modern contraceptives unless state-supplied. Projections show a population boom anticipated for the rest of this century to occur in the region, due to the demographics of extreme poverty and its correlation with population growth. The use of condoms serves double duty as a form of contraception, in addition to protecting against the transmission of HIV and other infections.
Other barriers include difficulty in access for young and unmarried people; uncertainty around side effects; the assent of a male partner; religious belief; cultural attitudes, and healthcare providers posing a barrier for the above reasons. Though cultural attitudes, even if rooted in religious belief, as well as governmental policy efforts, need to propel the shift.
If you live in a country where your contraception needs are unmet, religion may well be the culprit. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines freedom of religion. But how we reconcile the human right of freedom of religion with reproductive rights is a bit of a minefield. Even the branches of each religion differ, an example being Catholicism’s prohibition against condoms in contrast to Protestantism. The Quran appears quiet on the topic, yet a stigma surrounds the use of condoms in Islamic countries, synonymous with illicit sex. The low rates of contraception seem more related to the cultural ethos in the Islamic states, with a tenuous invocation of Islam to condemn contraception by leaders in the region. Malaysia and Pakistan are lagging. India has a Hindu population of 80%, but its government has played an active role in family planning for its country of 1.35 billion. The Philippines, with an 80% Catholic population, has also scored red. Ireland, also close to 80% Catholic, has scored green for the indicator, though contraception was illegal there until 1980. If you’re a reader in a country off-track, you’ll need to consult your conscience as it relates to your relationship with religion. Complicating this will be the availability of family planning methods in religious cultures, even via a physician.
What can you do as an individual in a country which hinders sourcing contraception? If you live in a country where the stigma is so high you face ostracism, this is a big problem. If you’re observant of a faith preaching the profanity of contraception, we’re also at an impasse. How deep to dig in our heels in such instances? Is a how-to book about the Global Goals the forum to persuade you away from the doctrines of your faith? With good fortune, according to the indicators we’re drawing from, we’re only looking to meet the demand for contraceptives i.e., if you are without demand due to your beliefs, then this is to be respected.
Serbia offers an example of impeding the issue of family planning in a middle-income country on the European continent.
51% were unwilling to prescribe the combined oral contraceptive pill to girls under 18.
76% advised women against using the pill for more than two years.
If this reflects the personal practices of a decent portion of Serbian professionals, experts in their field, unable to draw upon modern knowledge, what hope can there be for the general population?
The African continent, the poorest on the planet, is facing a demographic explosion. It is imperative women have the opportunity they desire for birth spacing. This dynamic highlights how entwined the matter of family planning is with poverty reduction.
The UN treats the individual's right to decisions on fertility with care. Both people and the planet will benefit if we’re able, across generations, to shift the total fertility rate below replacement levels. A demographic transition to the lower-end scenarios of population growth gives the greatest chances to the benefits of sustainable development.
If you have demand, make your first port of call a physician, should you have access to one. It may even be worth seeking counsel before conception - either with your physician or a midwife - in relation to your thoughts and intentions around attempting to become pregnant. Sex education is also important, so you can weigh attitudes held around contraception according to the correct information. The form of birth control, rather than condoms, could be a method drawing on fertility awareness to the menstrual cycle, though different methods have varied levels of efficacy.
Males in partnerships or marriages, when planning to have a family or not, may also play a forceful position, which a reader may feel at the mercy of, complicating matters further. This is where the importance of Goal #5 comes to the fore. This indicator requires an overarching achievement of Goal #5, such as we engender (so to speak) gender equality in the country’s mores and healthcare system. The decision of the woman in a partnership or marriage ought to be of equal grounding respective to the male partner or husband.
Summary:
For OECD country readers, affirm your annual commitment to give 0.7% of your gross income as aid, aiming for 100% demand for family planning satisfied by methods for females aged 15-49 by 2030.
For readers in countries off-track, reduce any barriers preventing women from accessing family planning.
Ratio of female-to-male mean years of education received (%)
This indicator compares the average years of education for women over 25-years-old compared to their male counterparts. The aim is by 2030 for the ratio of years of education to be on equal footing for both sexes.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - the definitive distillation of morals for the world's populace to live up to - enshrines the right to education. Upholding a basic human right alone ought to be reason enough to educate girls.
In girls' education, we hold among the greatest drivers of actualising the SDGs. Many societies have marginalised the value of women in their societies, whether due to tradition or religion. If the choice between educating a boy or a girl is a decision a household faces in low-income countries, the choice often falls toward the boy, hindering the girl's prospects of income generation later in life. Many of these same societies marry off girls at an early age, instead of allowing them to work, or giving them the gift of education. After marriage comes babies, some of which will die, hence more babies follow to hedge this tragic bet. Affecting their ability to build upon and invest in the livelihoods of vulnerable mothers is the short cycle between high fertility rates, coupled with high infant mortality rates and high maternal mortality rates.
If we educate girls rather than marry them off young, the primary and secondary schooling gender gap would narrow in the developing world. After a girl graduates high school, they have the prospect of tertiary education, and increased power to seek employment and earn a living wage in the labour market. She'll delay marriage and childbirth, have more power in the household, as well as more power in society due to her earning potential. This couples with what is understood to be a woman's sounder managing of household finances in the developing world. The fertility rate drops. The infant mortality rate drops. The pace of population growth decreases. The rate of personal savings rises, allowing for greater personal investment, and investment in a woman's enterprise, which she now has the confidence to conduct. It may even be possible for the taxable income of the population to rise enough for the government to use any tax revenues received to invest further, creating more opportunities to lift others out of extreme poverty.
Imagine half a society's labour market left unused - one entire gender marginalised for either traditional, religious, or societal reasons. How could such a society expect to prosper? Since the 1980s, China has pulled an overwhelming proportion of its enormous populace from extreme poverty. One of the key drivers was the empowerment of women, educating and entrusting them as valuable members of the workforce driving an economy.
Educating a girl is the clearest path to lift 700 million from extreme poverty by 2030. Take it from former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan:
All countries in red are LDCs, so we’re going to finance this increase in the education of women via OECD readers' foreign aid. Outside sub-Saharan Africa, Morocco, Iraq, India, and Pakistan are the only middle-income countries to score red for this indicator. We’ve already explored the matter of female education in Pakistan. India has cultivated the development of women to a dismal level up to this point, and is one factor why China has prospered, whilst India’s growth has been less robust. In general, the South Asian region needs to reassess its attitudes toward women in society to thrive.
Summary:
For OECD country readers, affirm your annual commitment to give 0.7% of your gross income as aid, aiming for females and males to receive the same mean years of education worldwide by 2030.
For readers in countries off-track:
For men, encourage the women in your life to receive the same number of years of schooling as you, or more.
For women aged 25 and older, receive as many years of education as the males in your life, or more.
Ratio of female-to-male labour force participation rate (%)
We’re again aiming for parity between the sexes aged 15 and over on this measure by 2030. The 2021 world ratio is 68% of females, compared to all males active in the economy.
The global scores for this indicator hold some surprises compared to the indicator before it. Sub-Saharan Africa is on track (except Somalia), so there’s relative equality in the workforce in the region, which is tremendous. But on the other side, Saharan Africa has scored red, as has the entirety of the Middle East (except Israel). This differs from the gender education equality indicator, for which only Iraq and Yemen scored red, and is striking in the case of Iran, which scored green for female-to-male education parity. South Asia, again, has struck out, scoring red (except Nepal and Bhutan).
Ensure the integration of the women in your life into the workforce, and practise affirmative action if you’re an employer. It’s imperative to the healthy functioning of our societies and economies for women to partake. Otherwise, it’s only an economy running at less than half-speed. How can we task half an economy with improving livelihoods over time?
This can mean breaking down factors within our control, such as upholding social norms which pose a barrier. Citizens of the Middle East and North Africa must challenge religious and cultural conditions, reconciling whatever traditions may exist, tied into faith, or more secular. A regional ratio of 19% female participation compared to men is unacceptable, and has only improved a couple of percentage points in the past 30 years. Men must challenge their prior assumptions relating to making decisions on behalf of women, including allowing them to pursue a profession. In some of these countries, the law itself cynically provides cover.
Men must assure women a safe working environment, free of harassment or occupational hazard. Attitudes must shift from women as objects of romantic or sexual attention, toward the higher need for everyone to participate in the economy, both to better their lives for themselves and their families, as well as for the broader society. What sort of citizen wishes to perpetuate a high unemployment rate, keeping people who want to participate from doing so?
As with the indicators relating to poverty, we invert the responsibility afflicting those least able to help themselves. Men must play an inverted role of empowering women in their families, communities, and nations, affording women proper workers’ rights and conditions, on equal footing with those afforded males, or beyond. For female readers in these countries, explore any prejudices you may have held heretofore challenging your mindset about the roles expected of women. All these countries will continue to stagnate, and the rest of the global economy will leave them behind, unless they integrate women. They lack the resources to adapt to climate change, and will only consign another generation of women to a life short of flourishing.
Summary: For readers in countries off-track:
For men, encourage the women in your life to participate equally in the labour force, aiming for parity by 2030.
For women aged 15 and older, participate in the labour force.
Seats held by women in national parliament (%)
This indicator aims for full gender equity in a nation’s parliament i.e., 50% of seats in either of the lower chambers for bicameral parliaments, or 50% of seats in the single chamber for unicameral parliaments. This 2022 score paints an ugly picture of humanity, translating to a global percentage of a quarter of all seats held by women, leaving the world in the mess we find ourselves in. This percentage is rising, though too slow, insufficient to get us to gender parity by 2030.
Whether male or female voters vote for these seats, we need to get over our perceptions of gender roles, and elect more women to the national parliament. As of 2015, all UN Member States now allow women’s suffrage. The word ‘patriarchy’ seems an inflammatory word in modern parlance, yet the data for this indicator disallows us from any other conclusion until we achieve full gender parity.
What to do? Voting for female candidates is the most basic conclusion. But what if your political leanings or ideology differs from the gender of the candidate on the ballot? What if you intend to vote for a candidate from the party matching your political persuasions, but the party has nominated a male to the ticket, and the only female on the ballot is from a party you’re opposed to? This is quite the conundrum. If you’re a member of a political party, your best opportunity may be to select a female candidate. If any reader within their country can support a quota for their national parliament, I’d encourage this. If you’re a woman reader, consider running yourself.
Males must take a proactive approach to move past attitudes long past their use-by date, and prioritise the full participation of women to lead. It’s indisputable we’re in deep shit around the world. There’s little room to infer why this is, as there’s a big common denominator staring at us in the face: male leadership.
I am one, so am comfortable and confident to say males are pigs - a grave insult to the poor swine. Vote for a woman. We males should be relegated to lifting heavy objects. Let women run the show - it’s our only chance.
Summary: For readers in countries off-track, vote for women in national elections, aiming for women to hold half the seats of national parliament by 2030.
Gender wage gap (% of male median wage) *
This indicator measures the difference between median wages of full-time and self-employed women compared to males, with a 2030 aim to close this gap to, thus gender wage parity.
If you live in these countries, or those scoring orange, how do you remedy this? The males have a responsibility to females, but what about female readers in these countries? If you feel you have the leverage, negotiate a wage increase above the male median wage in your country, or the equivalent whilst self-employed).
If you’re a male business owner or manager, I’d suggest affirmative action in the form of increasing the wage of female employees by the percentage of your country’s gender wage gap, appropriating this amount from the wages of male colleagues. Males could or should practise this, where equal opportunity laws allow it.
If you're a male with a wife or female partner, encourage your spouse to earn the difference in the national gender wage gap above your wage, which could mean changing responsibilities. The male adult of the household may have worked full-time, and the female adult part-time. The couple should switch these roles.
Summary: For readers in countries off-track:
men: encourage the women in your life to earn the same wage as you, or more, aiming to end the gender wage gap by 2030
women aged 25 and older: earn the same wage as the males in your life, or more