here have long been social movements for equal opportunities, wages, and resources across gender lines. With women’s rights under assault in the United States—particularly with the overturning of Roe v. Wade—women’s rights are seeing renewed attention. The World Economic Forum recently released its Global Gender Gap Report on the state of global gender parity and found that although gender parity is closer than ever, parity remains distant. Global society has begun to dramatically shift its expectations, gender norms, policies, and social environment to improve living standards and opportunities as a whole for women. However, long-standing structural barriers, socioeconomic and technological transformation, and economic shocks continue to affect women at a disproportionate rate.
The Global Gender Gap Report analyzed 146 countries in total on four key dimensions related to gender parity: 1) Economic Participation and Opportunities, 2) Educational Attainment, 3) Health and Survival, and 4) Political Empowerment. According to the report, it will take 132 years to fully close the gender gap across the globe. In fact, in 2022 gender parity had only reached 68.1%. Decisions like the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan demonstrate how much still needs to be done to end gender inequality.
Within each of the four dimensions, there are important gaps. The sector that has closed the most of its gender gap is Health and Survival while Political Empowerment is the one with the highest gap still yet to close. For the closing of the gender gap in each of these dimensions, Economic Participation and Opportunities stands at 60.3%, Educational Attainment at 94.4%, Health and Survival at 95.8%, and Political Empowerment only at 22%.
Economic opportunity has positive growth in recent years, but the pandemic has had a substantial impact on this dimension. While the global gender pay gap declined in 2021, this was driven more by declines in men’s wages globally than by an increase in women’s earnings. While overall income gaps have closed, at senior and expert level jobs, the wealth gap remains at 38%. Driving this divide is the fact that women are being hired at a much higher rate in industries where women are already over-represented leading to a false sense of equality. Although the share of women in professional, technical, legislative, and executive roles increased slightly between 2021 and 2022, women continue to be underrepresented in higher-level positions. This gap is more pronounced in lower-income countries with, higher-income economies scoring 68% compared to 63% in lower-income countries. Laos has the highest economic parity score at 88%, while Afghanistan has only closed 18% of the gender gap.
Educational attainment across genders also varies widely between countries. Literacy rates for women have practically reached parity with only 19 countries having a gap of 25% or more. Gender parity in primary education has also mostly closed, with only 4 countries—Chad, Guinea, Nigeria, and Mali—falling below 90% in closing the gap in primary education enrollment. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest gap for educational attainment at 85.3%. There has been improvement however, as worldwide there has been an increased focus on equal schooling for both genders. Impressively, Argentina has completely closed the gender gap in educational attainment. Unfortunately, Afghanistan has yet to reach the half-way point.
The health and survival dimension is the most equal area covered in the report. Even the country with the lowest score, India, has nearly closed the gap with a score of 93.7%. Despite this, during the pandemic, at-home care for children fell on women who spent 55% of their time doing unpaid work compared to 19% for men. Mentally, stress and anxiety also impact women at a higher rate than men. However, for women’s health, most countries have reached parity in providing equal opportunities for both genders. Belize leads the world with a score of 98%, slightly above the Latin American and the Caribbean regional score of 97.6%—making it the most equal region in this dimension, while the lowest—South Asia—still has a score of 94.2% in this area.
The area of society that has the highest gap is women’s representation is political empowerment as a whole. Society has made strides in recent years as the global average of women in ministerial position grew from 9.9% in 2006 to 16.1% in 2022. Similarly, the average share of women in parliament grew from 14.9% to 22.9% and the number of woman heads of states has increased. Iceland leads the world in closing the political empowerment gap for individual countries having reached 90.8% parity. However, Vanuatu has the lowest individual country score of 0%. Despite important gains, no region has closed more than 40% of its political empowerment gap.
Societies throughout the world must act to ensure that all aspects of society have the necessary resources to close gender inequalities. Most importantly, women must have a more substantial role in political leadership, executive positions in male-dominated industries, and equal income no matter the industry. 132 years is too long to wait to close the gender gap and achieve an equal and fair future.
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The Global Struggle for Gender Parity
July 21, 2022
It will take 132 years to fully close the gender gap across the globe, according to WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report. Societies throughout the world must act to ensure that all aspects of society have the necessary resources to close gender inequalities writes Brennan Rose.
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here have long been social movements for equal opportunities, wages, and resources across gender lines. With women’s rights under assault in the United States—particularly with the overturning of Roe v. Wade—women’s rights are seeing renewed attention. The World Economic Forum recently released its Global Gender Gap Report on the state of global gender parity and found that although gender parity is closer than ever, parity remains distant. Global society has begun to dramatically shift its expectations, gender norms, policies, and social environment to improve living standards and opportunities as a whole for women. However, long-standing structural barriers, socioeconomic and technological transformation, and economic shocks continue to affect women at a disproportionate rate.
The Global Gender Gap Report analyzed 146 countries in total on four key dimensions related to gender parity: 1) Economic Participation and Opportunities, 2) Educational Attainment, 3) Health and Survival, and 4) Political Empowerment. According to the report, it will take 132 years to fully close the gender gap across the globe. In fact, in 2022 gender parity had only reached 68.1%. Decisions like the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan demonstrate how much still needs to be done to end gender inequality.
Within each of the four dimensions, there are important gaps. The sector that has closed the most of its gender gap is Health and Survival while Political Empowerment is the one with the highest gap still yet to close. For the closing of the gender gap in each of these dimensions, Economic Participation and Opportunities stands at 60.3%, Educational Attainment at 94.4%, Health and Survival at 95.8%, and Political Empowerment only at 22%.
Economic opportunity has positive growth in recent years, but the pandemic has had a substantial impact on this dimension. While the global gender pay gap declined in 2021, this was driven more by declines in men’s wages globally than by an increase in women’s earnings. While overall income gaps have closed, at senior and expert level jobs, the wealth gap remains at 38%. Driving this divide is the fact that women are being hired at a much higher rate in industries where women are already over-represented leading to a false sense of equality. Although the share of women in professional, technical, legislative, and executive roles increased slightly between 2021 and 2022, women continue to be underrepresented in higher-level positions. This gap is more pronounced in lower-income countries with, higher-income economies scoring 68% compared to 63% in lower-income countries. Laos has the highest economic parity score at 88%, while Afghanistan has only closed 18% of the gender gap.
Educational attainment across genders also varies widely between countries. Literacy rates for women have practically reached parity with only 19 countries having a gap of 25% or more. Gender parity in primary education has also mostly closed, with only 4 countries—Chad, Guinea, Nigeria, and Mali—falling below 90% in closing the gap in primary education enrollment. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest gap for educational attainment at 85.3%. There has been improvement however, as worldwide there has been an increased focus on equal schooling for both genders. Impressively, Argentina has completely closed the gender gap in educational attainment. Unfortunately, Afghanistan has yet to reach the half-way point.
The health and survival dimension is the most equal area covered in the report. Even the country with the lowest score, India, has nearly closed the gap with a score of 93.7%. Despite this, during the pandemic, at-home care for children fell on women who spent 55% of their time doing unpaid work compared to 19% for men. Mentally, stress and anxiety also impact women at a higher rate than men. However, for women’s health, most countries have reached parity in providing equal opportunities for both genders. Belize leads the world with a score of 98%, slightly above the Latin American and the Caribbean regional score of 97.6%—making it the most equal region in this dimension, while the lowest—South Asia—still has a score of 94.2% in this area.
The area of society that has the highest gap is women’s representation is political empowerment as a whole. Society has made strides in recent years as the global average of women in ministerial position grew from 9.9% in 2006 to 16.1% in 2022. Similarly, the average share of women in parliament grew from 14.9% to 22.9% and the number of woman heads of states has increased. Iceland leads the world in closing the political empowerment gap for individual countries having reached 90.8% parity. However, Vanuatu has the lowest individual country score of 0%. Despite important gains, no region has closed more than 40% of its political empowerment gap.
Societies throughout the world must act to ensure that all aspects of society have the necessary resources to close gender inequalities. Most importantly, women must have a more substantial role in political leadership, executive positions in male-dominated industries, and equal income no matter the industry. 132 years is too long to wait to close the gender gap and achieve an equal and fair future.
