New Delhi: The global gender gap has narrowed to 68.8 percent, marking the most significant improvement in annual progress since the Covid-19 pandemic, but full parity is still 123 years away, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025 released Thursday.
India has ranked 131 out of 148 countries, slipping two places from its position last year. With a parity score of just 64.1 per cent, India is among the lowest-ranked countries in South Asia, according to the report released Thursday.
While women continue to outpace men in educational attainment globally, their presence in senior leadership remains disproportionately low. Only 28.8 percent of senior leadership roles are held by women, despite making up 41.2 percent of the global workforce.
Even as education levels rise on a consistent basis, the most educated women represent less than one third of top managers.
“Women’s progress in leadership continues to decline. As the global economy transforms, AI accelerates, and countries look to combat stagnating growth, this leadership gap should set alarm bells ringing,” Sue Duke, Global Head of Public Policy, LinkedIn, tells the media.
The 19th edition of the report assesses gender-based gaps across four key dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. It covers 148 economies, representing over two-thirds of the world’s population, and it integrates data from varying institutions including the International Labour Organization, UNESCO, UN Women, World Bank, and WHO, as well as data from the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law dataset and LinkedIn’s Economic Graph.
The path to leadership, the report notes, is becoming less linear, more so for women. LinkedIn data reveals that it is now more common for professionals to work in at least two different companies or industries—an evolving pattern that could benefit women with diverse experiences or can act as a barrier for those who follow linear advancement within single sectors.
Women also spend on average half a year more than men away from work, with caregiving responsibilities adding to their woes driving career breaks. They are 55.2 percent more likely to take them than men, showing how lateral moves, sector transitions and re-entry after breaks are increasingly becoming the norm rather than the exception.
Despite the encouraging momentum, the report highlights serious risks that can stall progress. Technological disruptions and geoeconomic fragmentation are creating new challenges, especially for women in fragile economies. Career breaks, caregiving responsibilities, and limited access to leadership paths continue to disadvantage women.
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Economic, political gender parity still over 100 yrs away
Among the four dimensions studied, political empowerment witnessed the strongest improvement of all. Since 2006, the gap has narrowed by 9 percentage points. However, this area also shows the greatest disparity of all, with only 22.9 percent of the global political gender gap closed which will take another 162 years to fully close in.
Economic participation and opportunity also improved, gaining 5.6 percentage points since 2006. Nonetheless, progress remains uneven with economic parity projected to take 135 years at current speed.
Both technological transformation as well as geoeconomic fragmentation create new risks that can undo the economic gains made by women in recent decades, claims the report. Women in middle and lower-income economies have recently gained better access to formal, remunerated employment, particularly in export sectors; however, they remain vulnerable to economic shocks, such as trade contractions.
As evidenced by the Covid emergency, effects of trade shocks for women tend to be everlasting and harder to reverse, highlighting the pre-existing disparities in earnings, assets and wealth.
The report finds a slight correlation between a country’s income level and its gender parity, with wealthier countries tending to have smaller gender gaps. High-income economies have closed 74.3 percent of their gender gaps, compared to 69.6 percent in upper-middle income economies, 66 percent in lower-middle-income, and 66.4 percent in low-income economies.
Yet, the correlation does not imply causation. In fact, several performers among the lower income groups have outperformed their wealthier counterparts, half of them, in closing gender gaps. Success in gender parity, the report suggests, is dependent on national interest and prioritization rather than solely on economic resources.
Regional rankers & top achievers
Northern America leads all regions with a gender parity score of 75.8 percent, showing strong economic participation and opportunity indicators. Europe is close with 75.1 percent, bolstered by improvements in political empowerment, where it ranks highest globally. Latin America and the Caribbean achieved the fastest rate of progress since 2006, gaining 8.6 percentage points and achieving a 74.5 percent parity score.
Central Asia is placed fourth with a score of 69.8 percent. Armenia and Georgia are the region’s top performers, each eliminating more than 70 percent of gender gaps. Eastern Asia and the Pacific makes it in with a score of 69.4 percent. New Zealand, Australia, and the Philippines are the top performers in the region, with New Zealand the only economy from the region to break in the global top 10.
Sub-Saharan Africa ranks sixth with a score of 68 percent, demonstrating that progress is possible in all economic contexts. Southern Asia ranks seventh with a score of 64.6 percent, led by Bangladesh, which boasts a 77.5 percent gender parity rate and remains the only country in the region among the global top 50.
Middle East and Northern Africa ended at eighth with a score of 61.7 percent despite considerable improvement in their political empowerment since 2006.
While on the other hand, in the countries’ chart, Iceland remains the global leader in gender equality for the 16th consecutive year, touching 92.6 percent and remains the only
economy to have closed more than 90 percent of its gender gap since 2022. It is followed by Finland, Norway, the UK and New Zealand.
All of the top 10 countries have surpassed the 80 percent parity mark, being the only economies to do so. Notably, European nations have muscled their way through the top 10, with Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden maintaining this status quo since 2006.
The report supports the Global Gender Parity Sprint to 2030, an initiative led by the World Economic Forum to unite governments, businesses, and international organisations in accelerating progress on gender parity. With just five years left now, the initiative seeks to catalyze policy changes on ground and drive economic renewal through inclusive practices.
“At a time of heightened global economic uncertainty and low growth outlook, combined with technological and demographic change, advancing gender parity represents a key force for economic renewal. The evidence is clear. Economies that have made decisive progress towards parity are positioning themselves for stronger, more innovative and more resilient economic progress,” World Economic Forum managing director Saadia Zahidi said, emphasising the urgency of gender equality.
Dedipya Agarwal is an intern who graduated from ThePrint School of Journalism
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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