The Global Gender Gap Index presented in this Report seeks to measure one important aspect of gender equality: the relative gaps between women and men across four key areas: health, education, economy and politics. The Index points to potential role models by revealing those countries that—within their region or income group—are leaders in distributing resources more equitably between women and men, regardless of the overall level of available resources.
The Global Gender Gap Index was developed in 2006, partially to address the need for a consistent and comprehensive measure for gender equality that can track a country’s progress over time. In some countries, progress is occurring rapidly regardless of starting point and income level, but in others, change is much slower or negligible. A decade of data has revealed that the Economic Participation and Opportunity gender gap has been closed by 59%, with slow improvements of 3% over the past ten years. In Educational Attainment, the gender gap has decreased compared to 2006 and now stands at 95%. Health and Survival is the subindex that is closest to parity, at 96%, but the gap has widened slightly compared to 2006. While the most relative improvement over the last decade has been made in Political Empowerment, the gender gap in this area remains the widest, with only 23% being closed.
