Global Rankings of Gender Equality (GRGE)
How many times do each of the shaded countries appear on the top fourteen countries on ten leading global rankings of gender equality? Hover over a country to see the count. Notably, Sweden appears on all ten global rankings.
See the top fourteen countries for each ranking provider and descriptions of the criteria below.
Snapshot of Gender Equality by Country and Global Population
In our annual analysis of gender inequality by country, we bring together data from the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap 2024[i]and nine other leading country gender equality rankings. Six of the 10 global gender ranking mechanisms that we track, including the WEF rankings, are based on economy-wide scores. Three of the rankings are centered on women in the workforce, with criteria based on corporate metrics, including WIL and workforce stats, pay equity, and workplace laws and regulations. In addition, the Equileap index ranks the top countries derived from company scores on 19 corporate gender equality metrics applied to a developed-country dataset of approximately 4,000 companies. In addition, the Women, Business, and the Law 2024(WBL) country scores published by the World Bank Group are derived from metrics around progress and gaps in legal rights and freedoms for women in 190 economies.[ii]
“Lack of meaningful change.” The WEF’s 2024 report shows only a 0.1% closure of global gender gaps in the dataset of 146 countries, which leaves over 130 years to reach gender parity at the current pace of change. For the Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex, the time to closure of gender gaps at the current pace saw improvement over 2023, but it stands at 152 years. While average scores on both the Health and Survival subindex and the Educational Attainment subindex have reached the mid-90s, the average Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex score remains only 60.5%. Globally, the report shows that women’s workforce leadership has dropped over the past two years and has now dipped below 2021 levels. The average Political Empowerment subindex score remains very low at 22.5%, with only 12 countries scoring above 50% on closure of gender gaps.
While North America is the leading region for the subindex, its score declined slightly during the year due to gaps in pay and leadership representation, despite relatively high scores in labor force participation rates. The region has closed education gender gaps and significantly closed health and survival gaps. But it ranked third on political empowerment at only 26% closure of gaps, with women persistently underrepresented in ministerial and parliamentary positions. The United States ranked 43 overall, with a score of 74.7%. The U.S. ranked 22 for Economic Participation and Opportunity, a tied first place with 27 other countries for Educational Attainment, 77 for Health and Survival, where the lowest score was 93.8%, and ranked 63 on Political Empowerment, with a score of 25.1%. These numbers tell a familiar story for women in the U.S. – high representation in the workforce, but low representation among leadership ranks in business and public life. Figure 1 presents total scores for the top 25 countries from this year’s WEF report, as well as their WEF economic participation and opportunity subindex scores. Each country’s percentage of the world’s female population is spotlighted. (Population figures are as of December 31, 2023.) The WBL scores for these countries are also shown here, and we note whether these countries have been top scorers among the other nine rankings that we track. The table highlights the presence of gender bonds by currency and/or location of use of proceeds.
Figure 1: WEF top countries
The average WEF country score for 2024 is 68.5%, equal to 2023. The average total score for the top 25 countries was 80.6%, largely unchanged from last year. What else can the data in Figure 5.1 reveal about the WEF top-scoring countries?
- For the top 25 countries overall, economic subindex scores ranged from a few in the mid-60s to two scorers in the 80s, with an average score of 74%, unchanged from last year, but well above the average of 60.5%. High marks on economic participation and opportunities align with high overall scores.
- Strong WBL scores were also aligned with relative strength in economic participation, as the average WBL score for these countries was 93.8%. Legal frameworks for women’s ownership of businesses, assets, and property underpin economic opportunities and progress.
- Of the top 25 WEF countries, 15 also ranked in the top scorers of other leading gender equality rankings. A level of consensus is emerging around what constitutes a strong country score on gender equality.
- In 2023 the top 25 WEF countries represented only 6.4% of world’s female population. In 2024 this figure moved up slightly to 7.5%. This indicates the entry of more populous economies into the top WEF ranks, including France, Australia, and Ecuador. How can countries with higher populations adapt the structures, policies, and practices of these leading scorers, most of which are characterized by small populations?
Figure 2 presents similar data for the 25 biggest countries by population.
Figure 2: 25 most populous countries
These 25 countries represent 72.2% of the world’s female population. What does this data reveal about gender equality for the majority of the world’s women?
- Only 11 of these countries ranked in the top half of WEF total scorers. Only five overlapped with the top WEF scorers, and the average total WEF score for these countries was 70.6%, down from 76.5% in 2023. High scorers on gender equality are underrepresented among the most populous countries.
- The average WEF Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex score for these countries was 63.1%, only slightly above the global average and notably below the WEF top 25 scorers. Four of the most populous countries ranked in the bottom ten on this subindex. Broad-based gender equality in public life requires strength in economic opportunities for women.
- The average WBL score was 80, roughly unchanged from 2023. Globally, the majority of women do not benefit from strong legal supports for entrepreneurship and asset ownership.
India and China represent over 34% of the world’s female population and do not score well on gender equality. They were both in the bottom third of total WEF scores, with India ranking 129 out of 146 countries. Notably, India was near the bottom on the Health and Survival subindex. While China had a solid score of 73.7% on Economic Participation and Opportunity, it ranked in the bottom third on both Educational Attainment and Political Empowerment. Their WBL scores both came in below 80. How can the two most populous economies improve their gender equality scores?
Where does gender lens investing fit in?
A look at gender bonds – by currency and location of proceeds use – provides a representative picture. In which capital markets do we see gender bonds? Ten of the WEF top scoring countries and 15 of the most populous economies. Our research shows that demand for gender bonds has been seen in over 35 currencies – including a number of the of markets of WEF top scoring countries. In looking at the presence of gender bonds in the most populous countries, our research indicates these are markets where gender bond proceeds have been directed toward women’s financial inclusion and economic empowerment. Top scoring countries have a role to play in utilizing their capital markets toward global gender equality. We believe gender bonds are instruments that can serve to narrow the over 130 years to global gender parity at the current pace.
[i] Pal, K., Piaget, K., and Zahidi, S. (2024, Jun 11) Global Gender Gap Report 2024. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2024/digest/
[ii] Forsyth, E., and Ledent, S. (2024) Women, Business and the Law 2024. The World Bank Group. https://wbl.worldbank.org/en/wbl
Global Rankings of Gender Equality (continued)
The top fourteen countries for each of these ten ranking systems are shown in the chart below.
| Aberdeen | The Economist | Equal Measures 2030 | Equileap | OECD | PwC | UNDP | U.S. News and World Report | World Bank | World Economic Forum | |
| Rank | 2021 | 2023 | 2024 | 2024 | 2023 | 2024 | 2023 | 2023 | 2024 | 2024 |
| 1 | Sweden | Iceland | Switzerland | France | Norway | Luxembourg | Denmark | Sweden | Belgium [scores 100] | Iceland |
| 2 | Denmark | Sweden | Sweden | Spain | Belgium | Iceland | Norway | Norway | Canada [scores 100] | Finland |
| 3 | Norway | Norway | Denmark | United Kingdom | Sweden | Slovenia | Switzerland | Denmark | Denmark [scores 100] | Norway |
| 4 | Finland | Finland | Norway | Norway | Albania | Sweden | Sweden | Netherlands | France [scores 100] | New Zealand |
| 5 | Germany | France | Finland | Netherlands | Spain | New Zealand | Netherlands | Finland | Germany [scores 100] | Sweden |
| 6 | Estonia | Portugal | Ireland | Italy | Italy | Poland | Finland | Canada | Greece [scores 100] | Nicaragua |
| 7 | Australia | Poland | Netherlands | Australia | Taiwan | Denmark | United Arab Emirates | Switzerland | Iceland [scores 100] | Germany |
| 8 | Netherlands | Belgium | Luxembourg | Sweden | Netherlands | Norway | Singapore | New Zealand | Ireland [scores 100] | Namibia |
| 9 | Austria | Denmark | Austria | Germany | Portugal | Portugal | Iceland | Australia | Latvia [scores 100] | Ireland |
| 10 | Canada | Australia | Slovenia | Singapore | Austriia | Australia | Luxembourg | Germany | Luxembourg [scores 100] | Spain |
| 11 | Czechia | Austria | Germany | New Zealand | Switzerland | Finland | Belgium | Austria | Netherlands [scores 100] | Lithuania |
| 12 | Iceland | Spain | Iceland | Switzerland | France | Ireland | Austria | Luxembourg | Portugal [scores 100] | Belgium |
| 13 | Belgium | New Zealand | Singapore | Canada | Costa Rica | Belgium | Slovenia | United Kingdom | Spain [scores 100] | Moldova |
| 14 | Hungary | Canada | New Zealand | United States | Moldova | Estonia | Italy | Belgium | Sweden [scores 100] | United Kingdom |
| Sources: Aberdeen, Economist, Equal Measures 2030, Equileap, OECD, PwC, UNDP, U.S. News and World Report, World Bank and World Economic Forum. Details below. | ||||||||||
The Aberdeen Standard Investment Research Institute (ASIRI) Gender Equality Index scores and ranks 29 OECD countries across various gender equality metrics with a focus on macro fundamentals, policy and empowerment.
The Economist’s Glass Ceiling Index is an assessment of the environment for working women across 29 OECD countries. The index considers ten measures of gender gaps in education, government and the workplace.
Equal Measures 2030’s SDG Gender Index provides a quantitative indicator to governments to gauge well their laws and policies advance women’s rights and measure progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) on gender equality. The index incorporates 56 indicators with three to five gender-related indicators each under 14 of the 17 SDGs. The index covers 144 countries.
Equileap’s Gender Equality Global Report & Ranking is based on evaluations of individual companies across 19 gender equality criteria. A country score is the average of all scored companies domiciled there. Countries are ranked according to level of gender balance and promotion opportunities. The 23 countries included in the dataset have 50 or more scored companies.
The Organization of Economic Development’s (OECD) Social Institution and Gender Index utilizes 25 variables to measure the level of discrimination and restrictions experienced in a country due to gender.
PwC’s Women in Work Index scores countries on relative labor force participation rate and unemployment rate as well as gender pay gap and female board representation.
The United Nations Development Programme’s Gender Inequality Index measures gender gaps in three areas of human development namely reproductive health, educational and political empowerment and labor market participation.
The U.S. News and World Report’s Best Countries for Women is a perception-based system derived from the survey responses of women on questions related to human rights, gender equality, income equality, progress and safety.
The World Bank Women, Business and the Law Index seeks to measure economic empowerment for women in 190 economies by analyzing the laws and regulations across 8 areas that impact women throughout their working lives.
The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index are culled from surveys and statistics from leading multinational organizations, indicate important progress in education, health, and economic participation.
This content is an excerpt from our Gender Lens Investing Q2 2021 Review published in August 2021.
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The above publicly available content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.