Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 5: The Achievements, Concerns, and Workplace Bias against Women

Gillian L. S. Hilton

Summary:  This paper discusses the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4 and 5 in relation to their aims and ongoing progress. It examines how these aims influence change in some areas of the world. The achievement of the stated desires for the education of all girls, equally with boys, and the move to women’s equality globally are discussed by the use of a broad literature search on the achievements and failures so far in the realisations of these goals and their sustainability. The treatment of females and their striving for equality in the workplace, and in areas such as leadership in politics and business and the sharing of domestic and caring responsibilities in the home, are also explored. The paper investigates the reasons that these aims for the advancement and fair treatment of girls and women have not as yet made a marked effect on global attitudes towards the education of girls or women’s equal status with men. Progress has been slow and, in some cases, virtually non-existent, particularly noted in Goal 4, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and the sustainability of both goals is in grave doubt. This problem is studied by a specific discussion of how bias, unconscious and conscious, affects women in multiple ways and by focusing on one specific aspect of its manifestation: bias in the workplace. Current ongoing research on anti-female bias in the workplace is presented, with evidence from a variety of professions highlighting the problems women face in achieving success at work. The conclusion is that the SDGs will not be achieved, nor will sustainable development occur, unless girls and women take their rightful place in the world as equal members of societies. In addition, they must be educated on the effects of bias and the part that education/training can play in overcoming its effects and sustaining the move to equality.