LONDON — Yesterday afternoon, a high-profile roundtable featuring several leaders from the worlds of politics and development gathered at the U.N. General Assembly in New York to talk about “actions and commitments for women’s economic empowerment” — an issue that has become central to the Sustainable Development Goals. With the aim of advancing the recommendations of a recent report to the U.N.’s high-level panel on women’s economic empowerment, speakers talked about the urgency of closing the economic gender gap — which, it is said, will take 170 years at the current rate of change.
But while experts largely agree on the definition of economic empowerment — a woman’s ability to make decisions about her own financial well-being — there is growing contention about the way we measure it. Some argue that current methods don’t offer a realistic picture of a woman’s economic well-being and potential.