SDG 5: Gender Equality

Goal: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

Global Context

Gender inequality persists globally. Women earn on average 20% less than men. Only 26.7% of national parliamentarians are women. One in three women has experienced physical or sexual violence. Women perform three times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men. At the current rate of progress, it will take 286 years to close gender gaps in legal protection and remove discriminatory laws.

Key Targets

Key targets include ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls (5.1), eliminating violence against women (5.2), eliminating harmful practices such as child marriage (5.3), recognising and valuing unpaid care and domestic work (5.4), ensuring women's full participation and equal opportunities for leadership (5.5), ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (5.6), and adopting policies for the empowerment of women (5.c).

Business Contribution

Businesses contribute through gender pay equity (conducting and publishing pay gap analyses), board and leadership diversity (setting and tracking targets), anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies, flexible working arrangements, parental leave policies, women's empowerment in supply chains, and gender-lens investing. The Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a joint initiative of UN Women and the UN Global Compact, provide a framework for business action.

Measurement & Reporting

GRI 405 (Diversity and Equal Opportunity), GRI 406 (Non-discrimination), SASB Human Capital metrics, Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index. The Gender Benchmark by the World Benchmarking Alliance assesses corporate gender equality performance.

Primary Sources

UN Women, WEPs, World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report

From ESG Library

• ESG & GRI Reporting Made Simple — SDG mapping and disclosure guidance
• Practical Guide to ESG Integration — Integrating SDGs into business strategy

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Related Topics

• GRI Standards
• UN Global Compact
• Environmental SDGs
• Social SDGs
• Governance SDGs

References

• UN SDGs — Goal 5 — official targets and indicators for Goal 5
• UN SDGs — the 17 goals and 169 targets (adopted 2015, 2030 Agenda)
• UN — Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda — the founding resolution