Page - 14 - in options, Volume summer 2020

“...gender aware policies, programs, and actions are required to meet multiple SDGs” SHONALI PACHAURI “It's important to reduce barriers that prevent women from having higher labor force participation. By doing so, previously economically inactive people can enter the workforce, thereby reducing the dependency ratio and mitigating consequences of population aging,” says study lead author Guillaume Marois, a researcher at IIASA and the Asian Demographic Research Institute of Shanghai University. The study highlights the “huge reservoir of talent” women represent and their potential rising-tide- lifts-all-boats dynamism. Marois adds that stabilizing demography is a prerequisite for sustainability, while women’s empowerment is a key driver in stabilizing demography. This new IIASA research shows that higher levels of education and expected increases in labor force participation (particularly among women) in both migrant and local populations will mitigate the financial challenges posed by aging populations in EU countries. “Although demographic aging is unavoidable in Europe, our research shows that the fears associated with the coming economic burden have been unduly exaggerated. Conventional projections use the simplistic and inappropriate conventional age- dependency ratio, which assumes that everyone aged over 65 is not working and that everyone aged between 15 and 64 is equally productive,” Marois explains. “With better labor force participation among migrants and the general population, Europe could largely avoid the widely expected negative impacts of aging.” Conversely, the study also found that high immigration volumes combined with both low education and integration leads to increasing economic dependency. The best policy options would be to match Swedish levels of workforce participation — the highest in the EU — and lift labor-force participation in the general population, particularly among women, while practicing education-selective migration accompanied by high integration. It is clear that getting more women into the workforce could make European development more sustainable in terms of population dynamics, but outside of Europe, where there are arguably even more gender disparities, gender issues are having an even greater impact. EQUALITY IN THE SPOTLIGHT “We live in a world ridden with inequalities, some of which overlap,” notes IIASA researcher Shonali Pachauri. One study exploring links between gender, energy, and poverty, she contributed to, found that increasing access to affordable, clean energy is also gender linked and addressing gender imbalances is a possible solution to persistent issues. “The study, based on a five-year research program, brought out last year, highlighted certain key findings and recommendations. The most important of these is that gender aware policies, programs, and actions are required to meet multiple SDGs,” she explains. The report emphasizes that while SDG5 separately recognizes the importance of gender equality from energy access addressed by SDG7, in reality energy access and gender equality are inextricably linked, and addressing them together can offer multiple development gains. The authors also point out the challenges and the triumphs of such polices, particularly in the Global South, where many gender- rebalancing projects are underway. 14 Options www.iiasa.ac.atSummer 2020