The Global Gender Gap Report 2016

English

pdf (1MB)

Download

The Global Gender Gap Report 2016

November 10, 2016

Through the Global Gender Gap Report, the World Economic Forum quantifies the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracks their progress over time. 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 Index was developed in part to address the need for a consistent and comprehensive measure for gender equality that can track a country’s progress over time. More than a decade of data has revealed that progress is still too slow for realizing the full potential of one half of humanity within our lifetimes.

The Index does not seek to provide a comprehensive set of data and a clear method for tracking gaps on critical indicators so that countries may set priorities within their own economic, political and cultural contexts. It points to potential role models by revealing those countries that—within their region or income group—are leaders in distributing resources more equitably between women and men, regardless of the overall level of available resources.

First introduced at the World Economic Forum in 2006, the Global Gender Gap Index identifies the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracks their progress over time. The Index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, education, health and political criteria, and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups.

Thirty-eight countries (two less than last year) have fully closed their gender gap on the Health and Survival subindex. India, Armenia and China are the lowest-ranked countries, and no country currently has a gap bigger than 90% on this subindex.

The Eastern Europe and Central Asia region scores in the upper middle of the range of the Global Gender Gap Index. Armenia is among the three lowest-ranked countries: Slovak Republic, Hungary and Armenia—have closed between 68% to 67% of their overall gender gap.