As labour markets get reconfigured with the emergence of new working arrangements and frontier technologies, education and skills do not only drive employability, productivity and wages, they also impact people’s access to temporal and geographical flexibility and their ability to balance caregiving responsibilities around work. This has been an important factor for labour-force participation choices among women and men, their career progression and their stress levels, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic began.18 It is no longer sufficient to frontload skills through training in the initial phase of the career for a single qualification throughout a lifetime.19 In the changing job market, demand for skills is rapidly shifting. As illustrated in Figure 2.15, creative thinking, analytical thinking, technological literacy, curiosity and lifelong learning and resilience, flexibility and agility are increasing in demand, according to the Forum’s Future of Jobs survey that studied the business expectations of evolution of the importance of these skills. To match supply for these rapidly evolving demand for skills, governments and organizations have been calling for policy focus and financial investment into adult education, training and lifelong learning, in line with SDG 4 (“Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”).20 In this context, the emergence of online learning has introduced a wide array of new educational solutions that can assist individuals in adapting to the dynamic job market. Online learning offers the advantages of flexibility, accessibility and customization, enabling learners to acquire knowledge in a manner that suits their specific needs and circumstances. However, women and men currently do not have equal opportunities and access to these online platforms, given the persistent digital divide.21 Even when they do use these platforms, there are gender gaps in skilling, especially those that are projected to grow in importance and demand. In the subsections that follow, analysis developed in collaboration with Coursera reveals important aspects related to gender gaps in the enrolment, attainment and efficiency in the acquisition of skills that are expected to grow in importance. Online enrolment The number of enrolments in courses on online learning platform Coursera experienced more than a fourfold growth in users between 2015 and 2022. In particular, the lockdown during the pandemic precipitated this growth across the education technology industry as learners of all levels had to shift to online platforms. Coursera witnessed its highest year-on-year increase in enrolments for both men and women in 2020. Even after the lockdowns were relaxed, a combination of online, blended and hybridized modalities of learning continued, highlighting new opportunities in online skilling and adult training. However, studying the gap between women and men’s enrolment throughout this period points to persistent gender disparities and indicates missed opportunities and barriers for women to access and benefit from such learning opportunities. As of 2022, except for teaching and mentoring courses, there is disparity in enrolment in every skill category. For enrolment in cognitive skills such as creative thinking (64.3% parity22), analytical thinking (52.7%) and systems thinking (55.6%), which are projected to become increasingly crucial in the next five years, gender gaps remain persistent and even register declines since 2015 parity levels.23 For enrolment in technology skills such as technological literacy (43.7% parity) and AI and big data (33.7%), which are within the top 10 skills projected to grow, there is less than 50% parity and progress has been sluggish since 2015. However, there is a relatively higher degree of gender parity in enrolling in courses for obtaining attitudes and socio-emotional capabilities. This is particularly important as attitudes and socio- emotional skills are among the most important skills to employers. Companies place great emphasis on these “human” skills that are less susceptible to automation and that allow their workforce to more efficiently respond to change.24 For self-efficacy skills, such as curiosity and lifelong learning (87.6% parity); resilience, flexibility and agility (77.1%); and motivation and self-awareness (86.8%), parity in enrolment has been relatively high. Gender gaps are also relatively lower in enrolling for skills under the category of working with others, for example, teaching and mentoring (131.5%), leadership and social influence (75.8%) and empathy and active listening (72.3%). However, women still tend to enrol in smaller numbers compared to men in all these skills except teaching and mentoring. Over time since 2015, these gender gaps have reduced only slowly in most skills, including those with glaring gender differences such as AI and big data, technological literacy, analytical thinking and creative thinking. Further, in skills such as curiosity and lifelong learning, resilience, flexibility and agility, motivation and self-awareness, disparity in enrolment shows signs of worsening as gender parity in enrolment in these skills have declined in the last one or two years. A closer examination of learning hours further supports and mirrors the analysis in gender disparities in enrollment across these skills. Overall, parity in enrolment in many key skills has been low. Further, they are slow to progress towards parity, and except for teaching and mentoring, talent Gender gaps in the skills of the future 2.5 Global Gender Gap Report 2023 47

GGGR 2023