UNW

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, or UN Women, was formed in July 2010 by the United Nations General Assembly. The council works towards establishing gender equality and the empowerment of women, in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals. Globally, gender inequality persists across numerous sectors. UN Women works to ameliorate the progress in meeting women’s needs worldwide by supporting member states by working with governments to implement policies required to actualize their goals. Delegates, you will deliberate upon an extremely prevalent issue: the gender wage gap.

 

The gender pay gap refers to the disparity between gross hourly earnings between men and women for a comparable amount of work. According to the ILO Global Wage Report 2018/19, women earn an average of 20 percent less than men, varying across countries. The gender pay gap persists due to a plethora of reasons; the gender pay gap originates from ingrained inequalities and reinforces them, creating cycles that disadvantage women and their families. The gender wage gap costs the world approximately 12 trillion dollars in GDP and it hinders our ability to maximize our society and economy, making it crucial to identify the issues caused by the pay gap and propose effective measures that could be implemented to mitigate them.