Iceland Ranks First on Gender Gap

The World Economic Forum’s measure includes several things:

While no single measure can capture the complete situation, the Global Gender Gap Index presented in this Report seeks to measure one important aspect of gender equality: the relative gaps between women and men across four key areas: health, education, economy and politics.

The time period covers nine years. On a sliding scale, on which 1 is perfect equality, Norway ranks first with a score of 0.859. The United States ranks 20th at 0.746.

The entire top of the list is Scandinavian nations and their neighbors:

2 Finland 0.8453
3 Norway 0.8374
4 Sweden 0.8165
5 Denmark 0.8025
6 Nicaragua 0.7894

What does the report show? Among the most important things is that women are still well behind men economically:

The ninth edition of the report finds that, among the 142 countries measured, the gender gap is narrowest in terms of health and survival. This gap stands at 96% globally, with 35 countries having closed the gap entirely. This includes three countries that have closed the gap in the past 12 months. The educational attainment gap is the next narrowest, standing at 94% globally. Here, 25 countries have closed the gap entirely. While the gender gap for economic participation and opportunity lags stubbornly behind, the gap for political empowerment, the fourth pillar measured, remains wider still, standing at just 21%, although this area has seen the most improvement since 2006.

One might assume that without economic power, women will continue to fall far behind men in their general influence on society.

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