GENEVA, Switzerland — None of us will see gender parity in our lifetimes, and nor likely will many of our children.
That’s the sobering finding of the Global Gender Gap Report 2020, which reveals that gender parity will not be attained for 99.5 years — perhaps even longer for the United States.
Of the 149 countries ranked, the United States ranked No. 53 and a score of 72.4% (out of 100), meaning it has now closed that percentage of its gender gap. Canada, also considered part of the same region, only faired slightly better with a score of 77.2%.
“Both countries’ performances are stalling, especially in terms of economic participation and opportunity. At this rate it will take 151 years to close the gap,” the report noted.
Erin Miller, vice president of Human Resources at PrecisionHawk, said she isn’t surprised by this finding.
“Until white men and people in power are held accountable to increasing diversity in positions of influence, this statistic will stay the same,” she told WRAL TechWire. “Executives and board of directors need to understand the moral obligation they have to use their positions to influence opportunity for everyone, not just people that look like them. I say white people because the fact is that there are still white men only looking out for white men.”
Nordic countries continue to lead the way to gender parity. Iceland (87.7%) remains the world’s most gender-equal country, followed by Norway (2nd, 84.2%), Finland (3rd, 83.2%) and Sweden (4th, 82.0%).
Other economies in the top 10 include Nicaragua (5th, 80.4%), New Zealand (6th, 79.9%), Ireland (7th, 79.8%), Spain (8th, 79.5%), Rwanda (9th, 79.1%) and Germany (10th, 78.7%).
Source: World Economic Forum
Western Europe is the best performing region for the 14th consecutive year. With an average score of 76.7% (out of 100), the region has now closed 77% of its gender gap, further improving from last edition. At the current pace, it will take 54 years to close the gap in Western Europe. The region is home to the four most gender-equal countries in the world, namely in order Iceland (87.7%), Norway (84.2%) and Finland (83.2%) and Sweden (82.0%), and one country (Spain, 8th) is among the most improved countries this year.
The Eastern Europe and Central Asia region has closed 71.5% of its gender gap so far with a slight improvement since last year. To date the time to fully close its overall gender gap is estimated to be 107 years. The region has fully closed its educational gap and has improved women’s political empowerment which however remains only closed at 15%. 21 of the 26 countries in this region have closed at least 70% and the top-ranked country, Latvia, 11th has closed 78.5% of its gap.
The Latin America and the Caribbean region has closed 72.1% of its gender gap so far, progressing 1 percentage points since last year. At this rate it will take 59 years to close the gender gap. The most noticeable improvement is on the Political empowerment dimension where the region closes its gap by 5 percentage points. Led my Nicaragua that has closed 80.4% of its gap (5th), 15 of the 24 countries covered by the report have improved their overall scores. Among the most improved countries, Mexico reduced its gender gap by 3.4 points on a year-over-year basis.
The Sub-Saharan Africa region has closed 68.0% of its gender gap so far. This result is a significant progress since last edition which leads to revise down the number of years it will take to close the gender gap, which is now estimated at 95 years. The region is home of one of the top-ten countries overall Rwanda (9th) while another 21 countries have improved their performances since last year, including Ethiopia (82nd) one of the best improved this year globally.
The East Asia and Pacific Region has closed 69% of the overall gender gap. If the region maintains the same rate of improvement as the 2006-2019 period, and given the current gap, it will take another 163 years to close the gender gap, the most time of any region. The region has improved on three of the four gender gap dimensions and has been the only region where political empowerment gap has widened (16% closed so far). The best performing country is New Zealand 6th, which has closed 79.9% of its gap. It is followed by the Philippines 16th with 78.1% closed and Lao PDR, 43rd with a score of 73.1%.
South Asia region has closed two thirds of its gender gap. The region’s gender gap is the second largest despite a progress of 6 points over the past 14 years. If the rate of progress of the past 15 years was to continue it will take 71 years to close the region’s gender gap. However, in contrast with the overall’s performance, the region’s Economic participation and opportunity gap widens this year. Bangladesh (50th) leads the region, while the second ranked country, Nepal, lags several positions behind (101th)
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region obtains the lowest score (61.1%) despite having narrowed its gap by 0.5 points since last year. Assuming the same rate of progress going forward it will take approximately 150 years to close the gender gap in the MENA region. The two most highly ranked countries in the region are Israel (64th) with a closed gap to date of 71.8% and the United Arab Emirates (120th) with a score of 65.5%. 15 of the 19 countries in this region rank 130th or lower.
