The World Economic Forum issued its annual Global Gender Gap Report on Tuesday indicating that the world collectively is closing the gender gap between men and women, albeit at a slow rate.
The report gives a score of 0 to 100 for gender parity on economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. The report, which analyzed 146 countries in 2023, has evaluated 102 every year since 2006. In that time, the gender gap has improved 4.1 percentage points.
In the last year, the overall score improved from 68.1% to 68.4% globally.
However, the report indicated that gender parity fell in the United States by 2.1 percentage points. The drop caused the U.S. to fall 16 spots in the world rankings for gender parity from No. 27 to No. 43, just behind Colombia.
A big reason for the decline is a fall in political empowerment as the report found fewer women are in high-ranking government positions.
The United States scores its highest marks for economic participation and opportunity, ranking No. 21 globally. The U.S. ranks No. 59 for educational parity, No. 63 for political empowerment and No. 78 for health and survival.
Study: Increasing number of married couples earn similar pay
In a growing number of marriages, husbands and wives earn about the same. However, women are still doing more of the caregiving and housework.
The World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 131 years for the world to reach gender parity at the current rate of progress.
The report has found that no nation has achieved full gender parity, but Iceland is closest, followed by Norway, Finland, New Zealand and Sweden. Afghanistan, Chad and Algeria were rated at the bottom for gender parity.
"The tepid progress on persistently large gaps documented in this seventeenth edition of the Global Gender Gap Report creates an urgent case for renewed and concerted action" wrote Saadia Zahidi, managing editor of the report. "Accelerating progress towards gender parity will not only improve outcomes for women and girls but benefit economies and societies more widely, reviving growth, boosting innovation and increasing resilience."
