Minouche Shafik: Keeping talented women working is good for the economy

More women are now going to college than men, but much of that talent later goes to waste. Why? For London School of Economics Director Minouche Shafik, the problem is that we don't have systems in place to retain talented women in the workforce in crisis situations like the pandemic, when so many women had to quit their jobs and stay home to take care of their kids. "The talent of all of those women is a huge potential economic gain to our societies," she explains, so we need to find a way to better match them to (remote) jobs that suit their skills. "This is not just about inequality story; this is really an economic efficiency story as well."

She spoke during "Measuring what matters: How women are critical to pandemic recovery," a livestream conversation on October 28, 2021, hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.