The World Economic Forum's annual Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks gender parity across four dimensions:

1. Economic participation and opportunity

2. Educational attainment

3. Health and survival, and

4. Political empowerment.

The 2024 report covers 146 economies, showing a global gender gap closure of 68.5%. This is a slight improvement from the previous year. However, the alarming fact is that, at this current rate, the gender pay gap is expected to take 134 years to close fully at the current rate. 134 years is the equivalent of five generations! Progress is so slow. Economists argue that governments and businesses need to accelerate change to close the gender pay gap in a much shorter timeframe.

Some of the findings in the 2024 Global Gender Gap Index include:

• Iceland remains the top performer, having closed 93.5% of its gap.

• Europe leads regional rankings with a 75% gap closure.

• North America ranks second with a gender parity score of 74.8%, showing strong performance in educational attainment and health.

• Of the 4 dimensions, political empowerment of women has improved the most since 2006, although top-level positions remain largely inaccessible for women globally.

• Global labour-force participation parity has recovered to 65.7%, up from the record low of 62.3% due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Despite overall progress, women remain underrepresented in senior leadership positions globally, with only 31.7% of such roles held by women.

• Closing the gender gap in employment and entrepreneurship could increase global GDP by more than 20%, highlighting the economic benefits of gender parity.

Source: World Economic Forum