The global gender gap in 5 charts

Jul 14, 2022

Women still take on the bulk of unpaid care work, which contributes to the gender gap. Image: REUTERS/Johannes Eisele

Joe Myers

Writer, Forum Agenda

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Gender Inequality

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The World Economic Forum has released its Global Gender Gap Report 2022.
Here we show some of the key findings in charts from the report.
From the global top 10 to the gaps that remain.

The World Economic Forum has released its latest Global Gender Gap Report. The 2022 edition found that, at the current rate of progress, it will take 132 years to reach gender parity.

This is a slight improvement on 2021's report, when we were looking at 136 years to parity, but the impact and legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic remain significant. Before COVID-19, the gender gap was set to close in a century.

To help you digest the findings of this year's report, here are some of the key charts.

Gender Gap Report 2022: The world's most gender-equal countries

Iceland tops the ranking for the 12th year in a row. Image: World Economic Forum

Iceland tops the ranking for the 12th year in a row - and is the only country to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap.

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Mind the gap

Global Gender Gap Report 2022 percentage closed

Progress is slow. Image: World Economic Forum

68.1% of the global gender gap has closed, according to the latest edition of the report. But, as mentioned above, just four years of progress has been made since 2021.

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What's the World Economic Forum doing about the gender gap?

The World Economic Forum has been measuring gender gaps since 2006 in the annual Global Gender Gap Report.

The Global Gender Gap Report tracks progress towards closing gender gaps on a national level. To turn these insights into concrete action and national progress, we have developed the Gender Parity Accelerator model for public private collaboration.

These accelerators have been convened in twelve countries across three regions. Accelerators are established in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico and Panama in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank in Latin America and the Caribbean, Egypt and Jordan in the Middle East and North Africa, and Japan and Kazakhstan in Asia.

All Country Accelerators, along with Knowledge Partner countries demonstrating global leadership in closing gender gaps, are part of a wider ecosystem, the Global Learning Network, that facilitates exchange of insights and experiences through the Forum’s platform.

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In these countries CEOs and ministers are working together in a three-year time frame on policies that help to further close the economic gender gaps in their countries. This includes extended parental leave, subsidized childcare and making recruitment, retention and promotion practices more gender inclusive.

If you are a business in one of the Gender Parity Accelerator countries you can join the local membership base.

If you are a business or government in a country where we currently do not have a Gender Parity Accelerator you can reach out to us to explore opportunities for setting one up.

The pace of change

Global Gender Gap Report 2022 Pace of Change

South Asia will take the longest time to close the gap. Image: World Economic Forum

The remaining gap is unequal though, with different regions progressing at different speeds.

The politics gap is still wide

Global Gender Gap Report 2022 progress by subindex

There's a long way to go to close the Political Empowerment gap. Image: World Economic Forum

The rate of progress also varies significantly by subindex. While more than 90% of the gap has been closed in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival, just 22% has been closed in Political Empowerment, which has not budged from its position in 2021.

Women in leadership

Non-Governmental and Membership Organizations are close to parity. Image: World Economic Forum

This year's report highlights the gender gaps that remain in leadership by industry. While the share of women hired into leadership roles has seen a steady increase, this has not been reflected equally in all industries.

Some industries are close to achieving gender parity - for example, Non-Governmental and Membership Organizations (47%) - but for others the gender gap remains persistent. Energy (20%), Manufacturing (19%) and Infrastructure (16%) sit at the other end of the scale.

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