This chapter sheds light on global workforce, leadership and skilling patterns across industries and across time to give a more nuanced picture of the current anatomy of gender gaps in labour markets and senior leadership to equip decision-makers with the data to tackle gender gaps in the most targeted and impactful way possible.

As we approach the middle of 2023, the global economy has resisted slipping into recession, yet the risks to future growth and broad-based prosperity remain many and expected volatility high. Risks include those inherent in ongoing geopolitical conflicts, open questions about the future of trade and global supply chains, large-scale climate events, as well as the disruptive impact of emerging technologies. Many of these risks are expected to have a disproportionately negative effect on women, especially for women in vulnerable situations.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts modest global growth in the near term at 2.8% in 2023, improving marginally in 2024.¹ Yet, further down the line, the World Bank projects falling long-term global economic prospects in the absence of deep structural transformation.² Unlocking all talent in the workforce, in innovation and leadership will be critical in brightening the current prospects.

Increases in the cost-of-living are set to remain elevated, with baseline global inflation expected around 7% in 2023, significantly above traditional central bank targets of 2%. This will continue to put disproportionate pressure on individuals with low incomes.³ Furthermore, labour markets are showing signs of cooling after a post-pandemic period of high demand for workers and upward pressures on wages. In the longer run, International Labour Organization (ILO) projections point to rising global unemployment and informal work as well as further slowing productivity growth.⁴

The 2022 edition of the Global Gender Gap Report raised concerns over the state of gender parity in the labour market. Not only was women’s participation slipping globally, but other markers of economic opportunity were showing substantive disparities between women and men. Since the last edition, while women have (re-)entered the labour force at higher rates than men globally, leading to a small recovery in gender parity in the labour-force participation rate, gaps remain wide overall and in several specific dimensions.

Between 2019 and 2020, the global women’s labour-force participation rate declined by 3.4%, as compared to 2.4% for men.⁵ Women have been (re-)entering the workforce at a slightly higher rate than men since then, resulting in a modest recovery in gender parity. Between the 2022 and 2023 editions, parity in the labour-force participation rate increased from 63% to 64%. However, the recovery remains unfinished, as parity is still at the second-lowest point since the first edition of the index in 2006 and significantly below its 2009 peak of 69%.

At the regional level, developments have been uneven. After all regions saw a downturn in the 2022 edition, the most marked recovery this year is observed in Southern Asia, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, Eurasia and Central Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, then Sub-Saharan Africa. Parity in labour-force participation in both Europe and North America saw virtually no change compared to the 2022 edition, while the Middle East and North Africa saw a slight drop.

Overall, the lowest levels of parity in participation on average at the regional level are in the Middle East and North Africa (30%) and Southern Asia (34%). Of all regions, North America attains the highest score of 84%, followed by Europe at 82% and East Asia and the Pacific at 80%.

Labour-force participation rates mask trends in unemployment since the former counts both those working and those unemployed but actively looking for employment.

After the surge in unemployment due to pandemic lock-downs, both men’s and women’s unemployment rates have almost returned to pre-pandemic levels (Figure 2.3). Historically, women have consistently faced higher unemployment rates than men, except for a short period in 2020 when the pandemic led to a peak in unemployment for both genders (and slightly more so for men). Since then, the likelihood of women experiencing unemployment is again higher than for men, compounding the gender gap observed in labour- force participation: not only are fewer women participating in the labour market, but out of those who are, relatively fewer are employed. According to the latest data from the International Labour Organization (ILO), the global unemployment rate stands at approximately 4.5% for women and 4.3% for men.⁶

Disparity in female and male unemployment is highest in the Middle East and North Africa region, where the parity ratio currently stands at 2.69, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, with 1.51 parity, and Eurasia and Central Asia at 1.21. East Asia and the Pacific is the only region below parity (1.0), meaning unemployment is lower for female workers than for men.

Figure 2.4 further illustrates that unemployment patterns for women tend to be an amplified version of what is experienced by men. The likelihood of unemployment among workers with different levels of educational attainment tends to vary based on a country’s income level. In many advanced economies individuals with basic education face a higher risk of unemployment, and this pattern is particularly pronounced for women (Figure 2.4.a). Conversely, in low- and middle-income countries, individuals with advanced education are more susceptible to unemployment, with women again disproportionately affected (Figure 2.4.b).

Further, women face greater difficulties in their search for employment. An individual is considered unemployed if they are actively looking for work and are available to start a job within a short notice period, typically a week. However, this definition assumes that men and women face similar conditions in their job searches and are equally available to take up employment on short notice. To address these limitations, the ILO has introduced the “jobs gap” measure, which encompasses all individuals who desire employment but are currently unemployed, including those actively seeking employment and readily available to start work on short notice, those not actively searching employment opportunities and not available for immediate job placement, and those searching for employment but unable to join the workforce on short notice.

According to this ILO estimate, 12.3%, or 473 million people, fall into the jobs gap category. Women’s jobs gap rate of 15% is significantly higher than men’s jobs gap rate of 10.5%.⁷ Among both men and women actively seeking employment, women are also significantly less likely to be readily available to start work on short notice than men.⁸ Evidence suggests that these gaps persist due to both a lack of suitable job opportunities and lack of access to existing opportunities, in turn due to disproportionate care responsibilities and discouragement to search for opportunities, among other factors.⁹

When women secure employment, they often face substandard quality of working conditions. A significant portion of the recovery in employment since 2020 can be attributed to informal employment. The ILO estimates that out of every five jobs created for women, four are within the informal economy, whereas for men,the ratio is two out of every three jobs.¹⁰ While informal work is critical and may drive production and employment, it is often a “last-resort” option characterized by a lack of legal protections, social security, and decent working conditions, and poses numerous challenges for women’s economic and social well-being.

Overall, over the last decade, there has been insufficient progress in improving working conditions, interrupted by shocks in key labour-force indicators. Women still encounter barriers entering the workforce, struggle to find jobs, and face relatively poorer working conditions, calling for renewed focus by both governments and business leaders. Across the world, inadequate care systems are one of the largest roadblocks to improving gender gaps in the labour market.

In addition to overall barriers to labour-force participation and employment, global data provided by LinkedIn shows persistent skewing in women’s representation in the workforce across industries.¹¹

In LinkedIn’s sample, which comprises all LinkedIn users in 163 countries, women account for 41.9% of the workforce (ILO reports 39.5% in 2021 for the global workforce¹²). Trends over time indicate that the share of women hired into the total workforce saw upward trends between 2016-2019, increasing from 41.6% to 42.1% before plateauing in 2020. In the last three years, the proportion of jobs held by women increased again in 2021 (+0.12 percentage points), followed by a slight drop in 2022 (-0.03 percentage points) and a steeper decline in 2023 (-0.31 percentage points).

A closer look across industries reveals that Healthcare and Care Services (64.7%) continues to be a female-dominated field. Women also outnumber men, though to a lesser degree, in Education (54.0%) and Consumer Services (51.8%). The Government and Public sector is the only one showcasing a fairly balanced distribution of men and women across occupations, with women accounting for almost half (49.7%) of the workforce in 2023 (down from 50% in 2022). Industries where women are under-represented yet still make up more than 40% of the workforce (i.e. above the global average score of 41.9%, and the median score of 42.4%) are Retail (48.7%), Entertainment Providers (48.4%), Administrative and Support Services (46.5%), Real Estate (44.7%), Accommodation and Food (43.3%) and Financial Services (42.4%). Finally, women are poorly represented in sectors like Oil, Gas and Mining (22.7%) and Infrastructure (22.3%), where they account for less than one-quarter of workers.

The drop in women’s workforce representation between 2022 and 2023 noted earlier is observed across industries, but especially in Consumer Services (-0.71 percentage points), Accommodation and Food (-0.67 percentage points), Agriculture (-0.65 percentage points), and Wholesale (-0.62 percentage points).

The share of women in Accommodation and Food, however, has been experiencing a downward trend since 2020 – along with women’s share in Retail and, to a smaller extent, in Healthcare and Care Services and Financial Services (for the latter, the decline started in 2018).

The industries where women’s representation has been trending markedly upward since 2016 (albeit dipping at the beginning of 2023) are: Government and Public Sector (+1.8 percentage points in 2022 compared to 2016), Agriculture (+1.24 percentage points), Infrastructure (+1.16 percentage points), Consumer Services (+1.1 percentage points), Professional Services (+0.95 percentage points) and Technology, Information and Media (+0.94 percentage points).

LinkedIn data indicates that the share of women in senior leadership positions – where “senior leadership” is defined as Director,¹³ Vice-President (VP)¹⁴ or C-suite¹⁵ – is at 32.2% in 2023 nearly 10 percentage points lower than women’s overall 2023 workforce representation of 41.9%. Women continue to be outnumbered by men in senior leadership positions across all industries, especially so in fields like Manufacturing (24.6% women); Agriculture (23.3%); Supply Chain and Transportation (23.0%); Oil, Gas and Mining (18.6%); and Infrastructure (16.1%).

The sectors where gender diversity in senior leadership is more present, with women taking up between one-third and one-half of senior leadership roles, are: Healthcare and Care Services (49.5%), Education (46.0%), Consumer Services (45.9%), Government and Public Sector (40.3%), Retail (38.5%), Entertainment Providers (37.1%), Administrative and Support Services (34.7%), and Accommodation and Food (33.5%).

When further disaggregating the data by seniority levels, it becomes apparent that different industries display different intensities and patterns when it comes to the “drop to the top” – the degree to which female representation drops as seniority level increases. This is illustrated in Figure 2.7.

Representation drops to 25% in C-suite positions on average, which is just more than half of the representation in entry-level positions, at 46%. Women fare relatively better in industries such as Consumer Services, Retail, and Education, which register ratios of C-suite vs entry level representation between 64% and 68%, as shown in Table 2.1. Construction, Financial Services and Real Estate, on the other hand, present the toughest conditions for aspiring female leaders, with a ratio of C-suite to entry-level representation of less than 50%.

On average, across industries, a significant gap is seen when comparing the share of women in senior contributor positions (44.0%) to that of women in Manager (35.5%) or Director roles (36.8%). The disproportionate share of men holding top positions is even starker among higher-ranked positions, where men account for 71.7% of Vice-President (VP) roles and 74.6% of C-suite positions on average.

Industries with the greatest discrepancy between women’s share in senior contributor roles and that in either Director or higher-ranked roles (VP or C-suite) are Real Estate (-12.9 percentage points), Administrative and Support Services (-11.7 percentage points), Entertainment Providers (-10.9 percentage points) and Healthcare and Care Services (-10 percentage points). The fields with a better retention of women and thus less abrupt drops in women’s share in senior contributor versus senior leader roles are Education (-1.3 percentage points) and Consumer Services (-1.4 percentage points).

Despite a significant drop in gender diversity from more junior to more senior levels, Healthcare and Care Services is the only industry where women surpass men in either Manager (60.7%) or Director (53.8%) positions, while also displaying the highest share of women in either VP (46.8%) or C-suite (39.8%) roles. The next-best industries for female senior leaders are Consumer Services (e.g. 49.9% of Director positions, 46.3% of VP roles and 38.4% of C-suite roles are held by women) and Education (e.g. 49.3% of Director positions, 41.4% of VP roles and 38.6% of C-suite roles are held by women).

Despite the overall “drop to the top”, women have increased their representation in senior leadership since 2016 across all industries. The sectors that made gains in women taking up Director roles, for instance, are Technology, Information and Media (an increase of 2.4 percentage points from 30.8% in 2016 to 33.2% in 2022), Professional Services (+2.1 percentage points) and Government and Public Sector (+2 percentage points). Slower progression over time is noticed in the field of Entertainment Providers (+0.4 percentage points) and in Healthcare and Care Services (+0.5 percentage points).

The latter, however, displays one of the more marked improvements of women’s representation in VP roles, with an increase of 1.6 percentage points between 2016-2022, alongside even more notable progress in Technology, Information and Media as well as Professional Services (both registering a rise of 1.9 percentage points). Women’s ranks in VP positions have not increased as quickly in either Accommodation and Food (+0.4 percentage points) or Administrative and Support Services (+0.3 percentage points).

The global share of women taking up senior leadership roles (Director, VP or C-suite) had been on an upward slope in recent years, increasing from 31.1% in 2016 to 32.6% in 2022, yet dropping to 32.2% in the first quarter of 2023. Between 2016 and mid-2022, progress on women’s representation in senior leadership was seen across industries: upward trends were steeper in Technology, Information and Media (+1.98 percentage points); Professional Services (+1.96 percentage points); Government and Public Sector (+1.93 percentage points); Manufacturing (+1.84 percentage points); and Utilities (+1.75 percentage points).

Yet, women’s workforce representation decreased at all levels of seniority across the examined industries in the early 2023 data (-0.31 percentage points), and the decline is stronger for senior leader positions (-0.33 percentage points). The recent drop in the representation of women in top positions is especially visible in sectors like Consumer Services (-0.58 percentage points), Healthcare and Care Services (-0.42 percentage points), Real Estate (-0.41 percentage points), and Infrastructure and Agriculture (-0.4 percentage points).

A similar trajectory is observed when tracking the evolution of leadership hiring rates over time, which in turn affects the overall leadership representation rates as seen in Figure 2.8. For the past eight years, the proportion of women hired into leadership positions has been steadily increasing by about 1% per year globally. In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, there was a decline followed by a recovery matching or in some industries even exceeding the pre-pandemic trajectory. However, this trend shows a clear reversal starting in 2022, bringing the 2023 rate back to 2021 levels (Figure 2.9).

Progress in hiring women into top positions has not been advancing at the same rate across industries since 2016 (Figure 2.10). Some sectors are displaying upward trends over several years (Financial Services; Professional Services; Oil, Gas, and Mining), while others are fluctuating (Government Administration, Administrative and Support Services).

The recent downturn shown in Figure 2.9 has been observed across industries. Estimates by LinkedIn show that as of May 2023, the proportion of women hired into leadership is lower than what would be predicted based on the pre-2022 trend line for most industries apart from Construction; Real Estate; Oil, Gas and Mining; Education; and Agriculture, which continue to stay on trend. The most affected industries are Technology and Professional Services, which in May 2023 was 4 percentage points below trend, and Entertainment Providers and Wholesale, which were 3 percentage points below trend (Figure 2.10).

Examining more closely science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) occupations – an important set of jobs that are well remunerated and expected to grow in significance and scope in the future – Linkedin data on members’ job profiles show that women remain significantly underrepresented in the STEM workforce.¹⁶ Women make up almost half (49.3%) of total employment across non-STEM occupations, but just 29.2% of all STEM workers (Figure 2.11). The fraction of women in STEM jobs has nonetheless grown by 1.58 percentage points from 27.6% in 2015, and the growth outpaces that for non-STEM jobs (0.37 percentage points).

This data from LinkedIn suggests that one first point of intervention in improving numbers could be to smooth the transition for female STEM graduates from university to the world of work. While the percentage of female STEM graduates entering into STEM employment is increasing with every cohort, the numbers on the integration of STEM university graduates into the labour market show that the retention of women in STEM one year after graduating sees a significant drop. Figure 2.12 shows that among those graduating with a STEM degree in 2017, for instance, 35.5% were women; a year after graduation, 29.6% of those holding STEM jobs were women (a drop of 5.9 percentage points). In 2021, women comprised 38.5% of STEM degree recipients compared with 31.6% of STEM workers one year following graduation (a drop of 6.9 percentage points). Once in the workforce, however, women are generally less likely to drop out in the first years (until they start climbing the hierarchy, see Figure 2.12. For example, the difference between year 2 after graduation and year 1 after graduation is around 1 or 2 percentage points.

When it comes to STEM occupations, women are scarce throughout all industries, apart from Healthcare and Care Services, where they represent 51.5% of the workforce. Gender parity in STEM jobs across industries varies widely. In Technology, Information and Media, for example, the share of STEM occupations stands at 23.4% for women versus 43.6% for men, meaning that women are half (53.8%) as likely to take up STEM employment in this field. In other industries, such as Real Estate, women are only 35% as likely as men to work in STEM, whereas in Agriculture and Education, parity reaches 69% and 61.5% respectively.

Women generally tend to be underrepresented in leadership roles, but especially in STEM work: they account for 29.4% of entry-level workers and 29.9% of senior workers, but the share of women in Manager or Director positions drops to one-quarter (25.5% and 26.7% respectively). Women’s representation in high-level leadership roles such as VP and C-suite drops even lower, to 17.8% and 12.4%, respectively.

As AI continues to revolutionize the labour market, a new metric has been developed in collaboration with LinkedIn to analyse the gender gap in the distribution of AI talent across industries that have experienced significant impacts from AI.¹⁷

The concentration of AI talent overall has surged, increasing six times between 2016 and 2022. The extent of this increase varies across industries, with Technology, Education, Professional Services, and Financial Services exhibiting the highest concentration of AI talent.

However, when it comes to gender gaps, representation of female AI talent is lower compared to men in all large industries, as depicted in Figure 2.14. Overall, as of 2022, only 30% of AI talent were female. The industries with the highest concentration of AI talent include those with a low representation of women, as well as those with higher representation, such as Financial Services (female representation of 28%); Education (40%); Professional Services (31%); and Technology, Information, and Media (25%). Additionally, Consumer Services (38%) and Government and Public Sector (35%) are industries with a large gender gap overall and in AI. Female representation in AI is progressing, yet very slowly. The percentage of women working in AI today is roughly 4% higher than it was in 2016 (~26%).

The gender gap in AI professionals has far-reaching implications that extend beyond the realm of technology. It exacerbates the existing gender disparities in the workforce, particularly in a rapidly-growing sector like AI that holds significant influence over various industries. As AI is disrupting critical solutions in knowledge work, supply chains, hiring, education, health and the environment, among others, underrepresentation of women in AI can impede the realization of the innovation premium associated with diversity. In addition, when women’s perspectives, experiences and insights are not adequately incorporated into AI development and deployment, biased algorithms and technologies may be perpetuated, risking biased and suboptimal solutions to emerging challenges.

As labour markets get reconfigured with the emergence of new working arrangements and frontier technologies, education and skills do not only drive employability, productivity and wages, they also impact people’s access to temporal and geographical flexibility and their ability to balance caregiving responsibilities around work. This has been an important factor for labour-force participation choices among women and men, their career progression and their stress levels, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic began.18

It is no longer sufficient to frontload skills through training in the initial phase of the career for a single qualification throughout a lifetime.19 In the changing job market, demand for skills is rapidly shifting. As illustrated in Figure 2.15, creative thinking, analytical thinking, technological literacy, curiosity and lifelong learning and resilience, flexibility and agility are increasing in demand, according to the Forum’s Future of Jobs survey that studied the business expectations of evolution of the importance of these skills.

To match supply for these rapidly evolving demand for skills, governments and organizations have been calling for policy focus and financial investment into adult education, training and lifelong learning, in line with SDG 4 (“Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”).20 In this context, the emergence of online learning has introduced a wide array of new educational solutions that can assist individuals in adapting to the dynamic job market.

Online learning offers the advantages of flexibility, accessibility and customization, enabling learners to acquire knowledge in a manner that suits their specific needs and circumstances. However, women and men currently do not have equal opportunties and access to these online platforms, given the persistent digital divide.²¹ Even when they do use these platforms, there are gender gaps in skilling, especially those that are projected to grow in importance and demand. In the subsections that follow, analysis developed in collaboration with Coursera reveals important aspects related to gender gaps in the enrollment, attainment and efficiency in the acquisition of skills that are expected to grow in importance.

The number of enrolments in courses on online learning platform Coursera experienced more than a fourfold growth in users between 2015 and 2022. In particular, the lockdown during the pandemic precipitated this growth across the education technology industry as learners of all levels had to shift to online platforms. Coursera witnessed its highest year-on-year increase in enrolments for both men and women in 2020. Even after the lockdowns were relaxed, a combination of online, blended and hybridized modalities of learning continued, highlighting new opportunities in online skilling and adult training. However, studying the gap between women and men’s enrolment throughout this period points to persistent gender disparities and indicates missed opportunities and barriers for women to access and benefit from such learning opportunities.

As of 2022, except for teaching and mentoring courses, there is diparity in enrolment in every skill category. For enrolment in cognitive skills such as creative thinking (64.3% parity²²), analytical thinking (52.7%) and systems thinking (55.6%), which are projected to become increasingly crucial in the next five years, gender gaps remain persistent and even register declines since 2015 parity levels.²³ For enrolment in technology skills such as technological literacy (43.7% parity) and AI and big data (33.7%), which are within the top 10 skills projected to grow, there is less than 50% parity and progress has been sluggish since 2015.

However, there is a relatively higher degree of gender parity in enrolling in courses for obtaining attitudes and socio-emotional capabilities. This is particularly important as attitudes and socio-emotional skills are among the most important skills to employers. Companies place great emphasis on these “human” skills that are less susceptible to automation and that allow their workforce to more efficiently respond to change.²⁴ For self-efficacy skills, such as curiosity and lifelong learning (87.6% parity); resilience, flexibility and agility (77.1%); and motivation and self-awareness (86.8%), parity in enrollment has been relatively high. Gender gaps are also relatively lower in enrolling for skills under the category of working with others, for example, teaching and mentoring (131.5%), leadership and social influence (75.8%) and empathy and active listening (72.3%). However, women still tend to enrol in smaller numbers compared to men in all these skills except teaching and mentoring.

Over time since 2015, these gender gaps have reduced only slowly in most skills, including those with the glaring gender differences such as AI and big data, technological literacy, analytical thinking and creative thinking. Further, in skills such as curiosity and lifelong learning, resilience, flexibility and agility, motivation and self-awareness, disparity in enrolment shows signs of worsening as gender parity in enrollment in these skills have declined in the last one or two years.

A closer examination of learning hours further supports and mirrors the analysis in gender disparities in enrollment across these skills. Overall, parity in enrolment in many key skills has been low. Further, they are slow to progress towards parity, and except for teaching and mentoring, talent management and design and user experience, parity in any skills has not progressed by more than 3 percentage points since last year.

The findings regarding parity in enrolment extend to patterns of parity in skilling outcomes. Gender differences in skilling outcomes reveal slightly varied patterns across different skill categories and proficiency levels.

Women are at parity with men in acquiring beginner and advanced levels of self-efficacy, working with others, and ethics skills. They also exhibit parity in attaining beginner-level management and engagement skills. However, when compared to men, a smaller number of women achieve intermediate and advanced levels in this skill category. Notably, the most significant gender gap is found in the technology skills category, across all proficiency levels. Furthermore, gender disparity in cognitive skills also remains relatively high across all proficiency levels.

Across all skill categories, the gender gaps tend to widen as proficiency levels increase. The largest drop in attainment occurs in the management and engagement skills skill category, where parity observed at the beginner level decreases from 108.8% to 71.7% at the advanced level. There is also a 29% difference between parity in attaining beginner level (75.9%) and advanced level (46.8%) technology skills. For cognitive skills, there is 85.3% parity in attaining cognitive skills; however, this drops to 61.4% parity in advance level skill attainment.

The underlying factors contributing to this disparity and the disadvantages faced by women warrant further investigation. In the subsequent section, we delve into the examination of gender disparities in the time required to acquire these skills to study the efficiency with which women and men are attaining these skills.

Even as women are getting fewer learning opportunities than men, they demonstrate relatively more efficiency in attaining them across proficiency levels for most skills. Women are especially outpacing men in achieveing proficiency in skills that take relatively longer to acquire, as measured by median learning hours. Women tend to attain most proficiency levels in all the skill categories studied, such as cognitive skills, management and engagement skills, self-efficacy, working with others, and ethics and technology skills, in less time compared to men. Only at beginner levels of proficiency for self-efficacy, working with others and ethics and management and engagement skills did women require slightly more learning hours.

The pattern may stem from factors like time poverty experienced by women, the efficiency of the enrolled women, or a combination of various elements.

The gendered patterns observed in skilling have significant ramifications for economic progress due to their effects on talent allocation, utilization and innovation in the context of fast evolving skill demands. This has the potential to impede progress in reducing occupational segregation, thereby restricting job opportunities, and limiting the available talent pool. This can consequently negatively impact economic growth.²⁵ Moreover, the enduring nature of this segregation, combined with obstacles to acquiring specific skills and the perpetuation of gender stereotypes, result in missed opportunities for women to increase their earnings and advance in their careers. According to an OECD study based on data from the PIAAC Survey of Advanced Skills, there is a positive correlation between wages and adult training and learning for both male and female workers. Further, women who engage in job-related non-formal trainings, such as courses, seminars, workshops or organized sessions, tend to earn higher wages than their male counterparts.²⁶

Improving women’s access to skilling opportunities will be critical to respond to the rapid shifts in the skills needed in the job market. A recent study highlighted that learners without degrees can learn critical skills just as fast as degree holders. This will be particularly important for women without advanced formal education and there is significant potential for skills-based approaches such as industry micro-credentials and skills-based hiring to tackle skills gaps and talent shortages.²⁷

Much like in the case of representation of women in business leadership, gender gaps in political leadership continue to persist. Although there has been an increase in the number of women holding political decision-making posts worldwide, achieving gender parity remains a distant goal and regional disparities are significant. The sections below examine the progress made so far, regional disparities and the challenges ahead.

As of 31 December 2022, approximately 27.9% of the global population, equivalent to 2.12 billion people, live in countries with a female head of state. While this indicator experienced stagnation between 2013 and 2021, 2022 witnessed a significant increase. This surge can primarily be attributed to India, the world’s most populous country, where a female president assumed power following the 2022 presidential election. In total, since January 2022, nine women have come into power, with eight of them still holding their positions as of March 2023. Depending on the political system of the country, these heads of state positions have varying powers in terms of national agenda setting and representation of the state.

Another recent positive trend is observed when examining the share of women in parliaments, weighted by population. In 2013, only 18.7% of parliament members globally were women among the 76 countries with consistent data. By 2022, this number had risen steadily to 22.9%, reflecting progress over the years. However, global trends do mask the regional disparities. At the regional level, as illustrated in Figure 2.20, the trends show diverse trajectories. Europe leads the way with the highest share of women in parliament, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Southern Asia, Eurasia and Central Asia, and East Asia and the Pacific have maintained stability in women’s representation during recent years. Conversely, the Middle East and North Africa was the only region to experience a significant decline in women’s representation in parliament from 2020 to 2021, partly driven by the drastic drop in Algeria, from 26% to 8%.

Further, in 2022, Malta witnessed the most substantial jump in the share of women in parliament across all countries, followed by Colombia and Slovenia. Notably, these countries have implemented legislated candidate quotas in their electoral laws. Nicaragua has the strongest representation of women in its National Assembly in 2022, with 51.65% of members being women. Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies and New Zealand’s House of Representatives have achieved gender parity. More than one-third but less than one-half of the representatives were women in 28 economies in 2022. These countries include Iceland (47%), Costa Rica (47%), United Kingdom (35%) and Nepal (33%). Women make up less than one-third of parliamentarians in the remaining 45 countries, including Canada (31%), United States (29%), and Japan (10%), as well as in populous emerging markets such as China (25%), Brazil (18%), India (15%) and Türkiye (17%).

Women’s equal political participation at all levels of government is recognized in international frameworks such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Traditional efforts to promote gender equality in politics have primarily focused on national parliaments. However, the SDGs have introduced a new indicator that emphasizes women’s political representation in local decision-making positions. This expansion enables a broader understanding of the opportunities and challenges for leveraging women’s contributions to local decision-making.

Research indicates that women in local decision-making positions play a crucial role in redefining local priorities. They bring a unique perspective to governance, emphasizing inclusivity, prioritizing family-friendly policies, and promoting gender equality in areas such as income, employment and parental leave.²⁸ By bringing these issues to the forefront, women contribute to creating more equitable and responsive local communities.

Data reveals that significant strides have been made in terms of women’s representation in local government globally, though disparities remain between countries and regions. Out of the 117 countries with available data since 2017,²⁹ only 18 countries, including Bolivia (50.4%), India (44.4%) and France (42.3%), have achieved representation of women of over 40% in local governance. On the other hand, 24 economies, mostly in the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Saudi Arabia (1.2%), Ghana (3.8%), Türkiye (10.1%) and Japan (14.31%), have below 15% representation. The remaining 75 economies fall within the 15%-30% range, including diverse nations such as Brazil (15.7%), Indonesia (15.7%), China (28.1%), Ireland (23.9%), Germany (30.3%) and the United Kingdom (35.3%).

Overall, almost 3 million women have been elected to local deliberative bodies in 136 countries. Encouragingly, 85 countries have introduced legislated gender quotas for local elections, with 66 countries legislating candidate quotas and 19 reserving seats for women.³⁰

However, despite these positive developments, as of January 2020, out of the 6.02 million elected members in local government worldwide, only 2.18 million (36%) are women. Although this is a higher percentage of women’s representation than in national parliaments (25%), achieving gender parity in local governance remains an urgent priority.

In the private sector, the scope of gender parity action by pioneering firms has begun to broaden from a focus on the workforce to whole-of-business approaches encompassing inclusive design, inclusive supply chains and community impact. Led by an overall post-pandemic reconfiguration of the workplace, companies have intensified efforts to provide more flexibility – although the overall impact on outcomes such as career progression is currently an open question. Further, a growing number of employers are boosting employee benefits related to caregiving.³¹

The World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs Survey suggests that more than two-thirds of the organizations surveyed have implemented a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programme. DEI programmes are one pathway to closing workplace gender gaps and can include mentoring, sponsorship, leadership training, specific policies for caregivers or increased flexibility of working arrangements. This can encompass action around gender parity, racial and ethnic equity, LGBTQI inclusion and inclusion of people with disabilities. DEI efforts, however, vary significantly across industries. The sectors that have invested the most in promoting a more inclusive workforce, with at least 30% of companies reporting DEI initiatives, are Nongovernmental and Membership Organizations (41.2%); Supply Chain and Transportation (37.3%); Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing (31.8%); and Energy and Materials (31.2%). The sectors that have invested the least on DEI targets and quotas are Education and Training (13%) and Real Estate (12.5%).

The majority (79%) of companies surveyed are implementing DEI programmes with a focus on women. The survey suggests that those efforts are primarily designed around training, and less so around material actions to close gender gaps at both industry and economy level.

The industries which focus the highest percentage of their DEI activity on gender parity issues, and where female workers are typically scarce at all levels of seniority, are Energy and Materials (91.1%); Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing (90.9%); and Supply Chain and Transportation (84.6%) – alongside sectors with a relatively better representation of women, such as Financial Services (84.3%); Education and Training (83.3%); and Care, Personal Services and Wellbeing (81.8%). The sectors that place lower emphasis on gender parity in their overall DEI efforts are Real Estate (61.5%) and Media, Entertainment and Sports (60%).

There is further significant cross-national variation in DEI efforts promoting gender inclusion in the workplace. According to the Future of Jobs Survey, the countries where companies are particularly committed to establishing a more gender-diverse workforce are Colombia, the Netherlands, Italy, United Kingdom and Canada. In Colombia and the United Kingdom, DEI programmes tend to prioritize flexibility on degree requirements for roles and recruitment, as well as on Employment Resource Groups (ERGs).

The existence of DEI programmes alone is not enough for meaningful progress. A recent study identified five success factors that DEI initiatives with the highest impact for underrepresented groups had in common.³² These are (1) a nuanced understanding of the root causes of underrepresentation; (2) a meaningful definition of success; (3) accountable and invested business leaders; (4) a solution designed for its specific context; and (5) rigorous tracking and course correction. These factors must further be refined and customized across industries and regional contexts.

The 2022 edition of the Global Gender Gap Report called attention to a post-pandemic crisis in the workforce: gender parity across key indicators was slipping, implying large-scale disruption of economic opportunities for women worldwide in labour-market participation, in skilling, in wealth accumulation and in overall wellbeing.³³ The recovery from the shock and ensuing polycrisis has been slow and, so far, incomplete, and the current context, coupled with technological and climate change, risks causing further regression in women’s economic empowerment. Not only are millions of women and girls losing out on economic access and opportunity, but these reversals also have wide-ranging consequences for the global economy.

Following a series of gradual but steady increases in the share of women in leadership roles over the past two decades, this share has edged up to, on average, 33.7% in 2023 from 33.4% in 2022 across public- and private-sector leadership roles. However, high-frequency data presented in the report shows that hiring rates for women into leadership positions across industries have been in decline since mid-2022.

Increasing women’s economic participation and achieving gender parity in leadership, in both business and government, are two key levers for addressing broader gender gaps in households, societies and economies. In addition, there are multiple mechanisms that link gender parity with firm-level and economic performance: a robust gender strategy is increasingly seen as essential to attracting the best talent and ensuring long-run economic performance, resilience and survival. Evidence on diversity in decision making shows that a diverse group of leaders makes more fact-based decisions that result in higher quality outcomes. And at an economy-wide level, gender parity is increasingly being recognized as critical for financial stability and economic performance.³⁴

Collective, coordinated and bold action by private- and public sector leaders will be instrumental in accelerating progress towards gender parity and igniting renewed growth and greater resilience. Beyond leadership representation, companies can engage in strategies to transform organizational culture, and design products and services to serve a broader range of consumers by making innovation processes more inclusive. Impactful initiatives are emerging at the frontier of business strategy and government policy, yet adoption beyond the frontier too often remains on the surface, is incomplete or altogether deprioritized. Government policy can be better designed to increase women’s labour-force participation, wages, and financial and technology access, and improve care systems and representation in public-sector leadership.

Some governments are taking an equity and inclusion lens to economic policy-making, with recent gender mainstreaming efforts explicitly recognizing gender parity as critical to economic growth and financial stability. A number of governments are implementing more gender equal approaches to increasing labour force participation, pay equity and health and safety standards, preventing harassment and sexual violence at work. At the federal government level, progress can be enabled through gender-responsive budgeting which has in recent years been pioneered and expanded by a growing number of countries, including Sweden, India and Kenya. Further, governments are increasingly recognizing the importance of investing in the care economy and taking steps to support it. They are implementing policies such as expanding access to affordable childcare, improving parental leave policies, and investing in healthcare and eldercare services to promote the wellbeing of individuals and the overall economy. Ongoing efforts are a step in the right direction yet will need significant scaling to overcome existing gender gaps in economic participation.

Recent years have seen major setbacks and the state of gender parity still varies widely by company, industry and economy. Yet, a growing number of actors have recognized the importance and urgency of taking action and evidence on effective gender parity initiatives is solidifying. We hope the data and analysis provided in this report can further accelerate the speed of travel towards parity by catalysing and informing action by public- and private-sector leaders in their efforts to close the global gender gap.