The long road to gender equality

According to the latest data compiled by the World Economic Forum and published in the Gender Gap Report for 2020, at the current pace of change, it will take almost a century for gender equality to be achieved. More precisely, the global gender gap will not close for another 99.5 years.

Starting since 2006, the Global Gender Gap Index has been measuring the extent of gender-based gaps in the four main dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity; Educational Attainment; Health and Survival; and Political Empowerment as well as continuously pursuing every improvement and progress towards closing these gaps.

If we look at specific aspects and dimensions of the gap, we will see that there are such dimensions where there are significant improvements such as in Education and Health and Survival. But there are such dimensions where progress is very small or there is no progress at all.

Based on the current pace, the education gap is likely to be closed almost completely within the next 12 years.

On the other hand, of the four subindexes, on average, the largest gender disparity remains the gap of Political Empowerment. Although this year this dimension has been improved and the pace of progress towards equality has been accelerated, only 24.7% of the gap is closed. Whereas, it would take another 94.5 years at this fast pace to be completely closed this gender gap.

Globally, 108 out of the 149 included in the current and last year's edition have improved their overall results, mainly as the number of women in Parliament has increased. However, to date, only 25% of these 35,127 global countries are occupied by women and only 21% of 3,343 ministers are women, while in some countries, women are not represented at all.

The second-largest gap with a slight stagnation since last year remains Economic Participation and Opportunity. The lack of long-term progress in closing the gap in this dimension further leads to the extension of the time needed to close this gap.

With the slow pace realized during the period 2006-2020, it will take another 257 years to fully close this gap.

Unfortunately, in this dimension, there is the least progress, while it is one of the most important dimensions. Because, no matter how great the progress in the other three dimensions may be, failing to make these capacities and achievements operational again implies general stagnation.

But, fortunately, this year's Report highlights the growing urgency to act, and the pathways to accelerating gender equality have also become more visible.

Without the equal involvement of half of the world's talent, we will not be able to grow our economies for greater prosperity or achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The top five most improved countries in the overall index for this year are Ethiopia, Spain, Mali, Albania, and Mexico. All of these states closed their gaps by 3.4 percentage points or more, and all show a significant increase in women's participation in political institutions.

Source: World Economic Forum