The World Economic Forum, WEF, published its annual report on the situation of gender parity in 146 economies around the world. The main conclusion is that although the gender gap follows a path of “recovery”, the difference between men and women would only be resolved within five generations.
Through an analysis under four categories (economic participation and opportunities, educational achievements, health and survival and political empowerment) A score was given from zero to 100, with higher scores meaning a closer gender gap.
Early findings reveal that the Nordic countries are the closest to reaching parity with scores of 93.5 for Iceland and 87.5 for Finland and Norway. While in Latin America, the best performing country is Nicaragua, ranking sixth; Colombia occupied position 45, falling three places compared to last year’s ranking.
Country situation
In the WEF chapter for Colombia, it is detailed how female political empowerment is the main cause of the country’s decline in positions. Although Colombia is ranked 21st in terms of women in ministerial positions, the Forum calls for improving the participation of women in legislative positions as well as in presidential positions.
Another area of improvement for the country focuses on economic participation and opportunities for women. Despite having improved 21 places in this area compared to last year’s ranking, It is still necessary to work on equal pay and female participation in the country’s workforce (103rd and 105th positions respectively.
Now, one of the data to highlight about the country focuses on educational achievements. Colombia shares the first position with European countries such as France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in this area. The Forum highlighted the literacy rate and enrollment in primary, secondary and tertiary education reaching full parity.
Regional overview
Europe stands out as the region with the best gender parity indicators, closing the global gap by 75%. Of the 10 economies that top the list, seven of them are European.
Political parity has climbed to reach the highest score among all regions in 2024 (36%) although the region still needs to improve in health and survival as only two countries appear in the top 10 positions on the list.
Latin America is the third region, after North America, with the best gender gap indicator (74.2% compared to 74.6%). In the same way, the region has been the one with the greatest jump since registration began in 2006, the general gap has been reduced by 8.3 percentage points. The greatest strengths are in educational achievements with five countries that share parity in this aspect.
Gap in the labor market
The organization recognized that parity in the labor market in the world is gradually reducing. The female participation rate stood at 65.7% (improvement of 2.2 percentage points compared to 2023), with South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa the regions with the most pronounced improvements.
Finally, the World Economic Forum recognized the progress of countries such as Saudi Arabia or Bahrain, in which female participation has doubled since 2006 (43.2% in 2024).
Recommendations of the Economic Forum
The organization called on the countries analyzed to consolidate gender parity as a source of equitable and sustainable growth of the economy.. To achieve this objective, the WEF recommends a redirection of economic resources in favor of equality and innovation in both the private and public sectors.
In the same way, it is “necessary” to remodel labor markets in favor of equality, as well as to design future technological and industrial innovations from equality.
