request our brochure

Gender equality is stalling, new report shows

September 25, 2023

Gender parity globally has recovered to pre-COVID-19 levels, but the pace of change has stagnated as converging crises slow progress, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2023. The report finds that the overall gender gap has closed by 0.3 percentage points compared with last year’s edition. The year of expected parity therefore remains the same as in the 2022 edition: 2154.

The overall progress in 2023 is partly due to improvement in closing the educational attainment gap, with 117 out of 146 indexed countries now having closed at least 95% of the gap. Meanwhile, the economic participation and opportunity gap has closed by 60.1% and the political empowerment gap by just 22.1%.

Parity has advanced by only 4.1 percentage points since the first edition of the report in 2006, with the overall rate of change slowing significantly. Closing the overall gender gap will require 131 years. At the current rate of progress, it will take 169 years for economic parity and 162 years for political parity.

“While there have been encouraging signs of recovery to pre-pandemic levels, women continue to bear the brunt of the current cost of living crisis and labour market disruptions,” said Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director, World Economic Forum. “An economic rebound requires the full power of creativity and diverse ideas and skills. We cannot afford to lose momentum on women’s economic participation and opportunity.”

DEI programmes to close gender gaps

In the private sector, the scope of gender parity action by pioneering firms has begun to broaden from a focus on the workforce to whole-of-business approaches encompassing inclusive design, inclusive supply chains and community impact. The World Economic Forum suggests that more than two-thirds of the organizations surveyed have implemented a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programme. The majority (79%) of companies surveyed are implementing DEI programmes with a focus on women.

Increasing women’s economic participation and achieving gender parity in leadership, in both business and government, are two key levers for addressing broader gender gaps in households, societies and economies“, the report concludes.

Source: World Economic Forum