The Global Gender Gap Report is an index designed to measure gender equality. It was first published in 2006 by the World Economic Forum.It "assesses countries on how well they are dividing their resources and opportunities among their male and female populations, regardless of the overall levels of these resources and opportunities," the Report says. "By providing a comprehensible framework for assessing and comparing global gender gaps and by revealing those countries that are role models in dividing these resources equitably between women and men, the Report serves as a catalyst for greater awareness as well as greater exchange between policymakers."
According to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2023, it will take 131 years for the gender gap to close.
Contents
Methodology
The report's Gender Gap Index ranks countries regarding the gender inequality in four key areas: health, education, economy and politics.
Economic participation and opportunity – outcomes on salaries, participation levels and access to high-skilled employment
Educational attainment – outcomes on access to basic and higher-level education
Political empowerment – outcomes on representation in decision-making structures
Health and survival – outcomes on life expectancy and sex ratio. In this case parity is not assumed, there are assumed to be fewer female births than male (944 female for every 1,000 males), and men are assumed to die younger. Provided that women live at least six percent longer than men, parity is assumed. But if it is less than six percent it counts as a gender gap.
Thirteen out of the fourteen variables used to create the index are from publicly available "hard data" indicators from international organizations, such as the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Development Programme and the World Health Organization.
2025 Report
The 2025 report covered 148 economies. Papua New Guinea and Trinidad and Tobago returned to the index, and Gabon was included for the first time. Several countries that were ranked in previous editions, are not covered in the 2025 edition. These include Afghanistan (last ranked in 2023), Bahamas (2021), Cuba (2021), Iraq (2021), Malawi (2023), Mauritania (2021), Myanmar (2023), Qatar (2024), Russia (2021), Syria (2021), Venezuela (2021), and Yemen (2021).
Global Gender Gap Index 2006-2025
The highest possible score is 1.0 (equality or better for women, except for lifespan (106% or better for women) and gender parity at birth (94.4% or better for women) and the lowest possible score is 0. Data for some countries are unavailable.
Upper limiting value of the Gender Gap Index
Gender Gap Index: 3.98 / 4 = 0.9949
This is the upper limiting value of the Gender Gap Index for the female-to-male ratio and for the male-to-female ratio.
Criticisms and challenges
The index is designed to "measure gender-based gaps in access to resources and opportunities in countries rather than the actual level of the available resources and opportunities in those countries."
In an academic publication from 2010, Beneria and Permanyer criticized the Global Gender Gap Index for only capturing inequality in certain aspects of women's lives therefore making it an incomplete measure of gender inequality.
In an academic publication from 2019, Stoet and Geary discussed several limitations of the index. For example, in the current ranking methodology, no country can, by definition, be more favorable for women than for men. This causes the index to undervalue issues that disproportionately affect men. According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2021, the index does not penalize a country where women outperform men in certain aspects, and it considers that parity is achieved in life expectancy only if women live five years longer than men.