The global gender gap in 5 charts
Women still take on the bulk of unpaid care work, which contributes to the gender gap. Image: REUTERS/Johannes Eisele
Listen to the article
- The World Economic Forum has released its Global Gender Gap Report 2022.
- Here we show some of the key findings in charts from the report.
- From the global top 10 to the gaps that remain.
The World Economic Forum has released its latest Global Gender Gap Report. The 2022 edition found that, at the current rate of progress, it will take 132 years to reach gender parity.
This is a slight improvement on 2021's report, when we were looking at 136 years to parity, but the impact and legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic remain significant. Before COVID-19, the gender gap was set to close in a century.
To help you digest the findings of this year's report, here are some of the key charts.
Gender Gap Report 2022: The world's most gender-equal countries
Iceland tops the ranking for the 12th year in a row - and is the only country to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap.
Mind the gap
68.1% of the global gender gap has closed, according to the latest edition of the report. But, as mentioned above, just four years of progress has been made since 2021.
What's the World Economic Forum doing about the gender gap?
The pace of change
The remaining gap is unequal though, with different regions progressing at different speeds.
The politics gap is still wide
The rate of progress also varies significantly by subindex. While more than 90% of the gap has been closed in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival, just 22% has been closed in Political Empowerment, which has not budged from its position in 2021.
Women in leadership
This year's report highlights the gender gaps that remain in leadership by industry. While the share of women hired into leadership roles has seen a steady increase, this has not been reflected equally in all industries.
Some industries are close to achieving gender parity - for example, Non-Governmental and Membership Organizations (47%) - but for others the gender gap remains persistent. Energy (20%), Manufacturing (19%) and Infrastructure (16%) sit at the other end of the scale.
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Stay up to date:
Gender Inequality
Forum Stories newsletter
Bringing you weekly curated insights and analysis on the global issues that matter.
