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<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="546" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/107203332-1678067196337-gettyimages-1247778710-MDM20230305chain03JPG-820x546.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-423503" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/107203332-1678067196337-gettyimages-1247778710-MDM20230305chain03JPG-820x546.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/107203332-1678067196337-gettyimages-1247778710-MDM20230305chain03JPG-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/107203332-1678067196337-gettyimages-1247778710-MDM20230305chain03JPG-135x90.jpeg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/107203332-1678067196337-gettyimages-1247778710-MDM20230305chain03JPG-768x511.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/107203332-1678067196337-gettyimages-1247778710-MDM20230305chain03JPG-1536x1022.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/107203332-1678067196337-gettyimages-1247778710-MDM20230305chain03JPG-scaled.jpeg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">MADRID, SPAIN — A young girl holds a placard reading “Watch out I’m a feminist girl” standing in front of a feminist mural ahead of a a human chain performance to denounce violence against women and make visible the feminist struggle. Marcos Del Mazo | Lightrocket | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Narrowing the difference in wages between men and women in the labor force can boost the world’s economy by about 7% — or $7 trillion, according to a Moody’s Analytics report.



At this rate, it may take 132 years for the world to close the economic gender gap, Moody’s said.



The economic boost will come as more women join the labor force and there’s an increase in productivity. A greater share of women holding more productive managerial and professional roles will also help, the report said.



“Closing the gender gap in labour force participation and the gender gap in management in OECD countries can raise global economic activity by approximately 7%, or about $7 trillion in today’s dollars,” directors Dawn Holland and Katrina Ell wrote in the report.



The report said narrowing the pay gap in emerging markets, such as India, would raise that potential even further.



The calculation is based on the pay increment that women in OECD countries, between ages 25 and 64, would see if their pay was equal to their male counterparts of the same age range in 2021.



“This alone would raise potential output in the OECD by nearly 10% and global output by 6.2%,” Moody’s Analytics wrote.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-family-responsibilities"><a></a>‘Family responsibilities’</h2>



The report pointed to “family responsibilities carried by women” and a lack of similar network connections among root causes of the wage gap between men and women. It highlighted that women were “less likely” to ask for promotions while being held to higher standards than men.



“Shifting social norms is a lengthy and complex process, but politics such as enforcing flexible working conditions, providing affordable childcare, and providing paid paternity and paternity leave help to drive change in the right direction,” Moody’s wrote.



The World Bank in a recent report added that discrimination has kept the gender wage gap in place.



“Gender biases and inequalities that have placed women in low-wage occupations, such as differences in jobs and hours worked, as well as women’s disproportionate caregiving responsibilities, contribute to the gender wage gap,” the World Bank said.



“The persistence of this income disparity between men and women negatively affects the growth of a country’s economy,” it said, adding that 119 economies in the world have room to improve their legal frameworks to reduce the gender wage gap.



The World Bank noted almost half of the world’s economies do not mandate equal pay by law.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-overqualified-women"><a></a>Overqualified women</h2>



The number of women in OECD countries holding a master’s degree or equivalent exceeds that of men, Moody’s said — but that still remains significantly underrepresented in middle and senior management roles.



This results in what they call a consistent “underskilling” of women, referring to the underuse of women’s skills and time.



As a result, this could lead to “economic loss at the individual and macroeconomic levels,” as economies see “limited and divergent” progress in elevating women over the past 10 years, Moody’s said.



“On average, women make a higher upfront investment in education but tend to land in lower-level and lower-paid positions, employed below their skill level, as measured by their educational accomplishments,” the authors said.

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<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="422" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107198143-1677078557441-Amira_Rasool_1-820x422.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-423374" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107198143-1677078557441-Amira_Rasool_1-820x422.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107198143-1677078557441-Amira_Rasool_1-300x154.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107198143-1677078557441-Amira_Rasool_1-160x82.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107198143-1677078557441-Amira_Rasool_1-768x395.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107198143-1677078557441-Amira_Rasool_1-1536x790.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107198143-1677078557441-Amira_Rasool_1-scaled.jpeg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Amira Rasool. Courtesy Amira Rasool</figcaption></figure>



For Amira Rasool, fashion is a lifelong passion.



“I was always the person that laid out my first day of school outfit, like, two weeks before school,” she says. The South Orange, New Jersey, native ultimately started a fashion blog in high school and took on internships at magazines like Marie Claire and Women’s Wear Daily while studying at Rutgers University. She landed a role as a fashion assistant at V Magazine her final semester of college.



That same year, she also traveled to South Africa, discovering local clothing brands she’d never heard of in the States. When she got back, she realized there was no way to get them abroad. And “it wasn’t just a South African problem,” she says she realized. “It’s a problem with all of Africa.” Many brands didn’t have the technology, infrastructure to ship internationally or access to U.S. retailers to get their apparel outside of African borders.



The trip planted the seed of an idea for a company that would enable just that, and Rasool ultimately founded The Folklore Group. It includes a business-to-business platform connecting global retailers with brands from emerging markets such as Africa, South America, Asia and the Caribbean, a marketplace where consumers can discover these brands and a newsroom that writes about them.



“We’re specifically targeting brands that have been geographically or racially marginalized from being able to have this access to retailers,” she says. Rasool, now 27, raised $1.7 million in pre seed investments in July 2021 alone.



Here’s how she’s built her fashion empire.



After that initial visit to South Africa, Rasool sought out ways to return to the country to found her company. She decided to get a Masters in African Studies at the University of Cape Town and from there, she traveled to Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya to learn about other brands and to start building connections with business owners.



Rasool officially launched The Folklore in September 2018, a direct-to-consumer business selling men’s and women’s apparel and accessories as well as homeware brands from all over Africa. She also sold items from Black business owners in the diaspora.



She had $30,000 to begin with: $20,000 that she’d saved up working at V Magazine and doing some freelance writing and $10,000 from her father. She ran the site herself with the help of interns and “my mom would just ship the products from her place to customers,” she says. “It was very much a community effort.”



Rasool lived in Cape Town through her degree then moved back to the States in February 2020, first to New Jersey, then to Atlanta. As the company’s found investors, it’s been able to expand. The Folklore now employs 12 people altogether.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-instead-of-competing-with-nordstrom-they-would-collaborate-with-them"><a></a>Instead of competing with Nordstrom, they would ‘collaborate with them’</h2>



After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Rasool realized retailers were actively looking for Black-owned brands to start stocking and selling.



The Folklore didn’t quite have the reach of big retailers and could end up competing with them for the same clientele. But if the company was the connective tissue between brands and big retailers, “instead of competing with the Nordstroms and Saks that were now interested in these brands,” she says, they could “collaborate with them.”



She also “saw that we would be able to make a bigger impact on the brands if we are able to get them stocked in more stores than just The Folklore,” she says.



Rasool decided to put her efforts behind building a B2B version of the site and launched The Folklore Connect in 2022. The wholesale platform enables brands to sell their products in bulk to larger retailers.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a></a>‘We know our problems better than anybody else’</h2>



Going forward, the goal is growth.



“We imagine being able to have thousands of brands from around the world using the platform,” she says, and “having hundreds of thousands of retailers.” They also want to expand their categories to hygiene and kids, for example, and expand their price points so they work for many types of retailers.



As far as advice for other Black entrepreneurs goes, “I would say to look at issues that we have within our community, like problems that we face, and create solutions,” she says.



Ultimately, she says, “we know our stories and we know our problems better than anybody else.”

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