Why will it take 134 years (i.e., five generations) to close the global gender gap? The World Economic Forum published its Global Gender Gap 2024 Insight Report (June 2024), highlighting the drivers for persistent gender inequality and what companies can do to tackle workplace inequality.
Human Level’s Take: At the current rate of progress, it will take 134 years (five generations!) to close the global gender gap. And the picture is even worse for some areas, like economic participation (152 years) and political empowerment (169 years). This only equates to a 0.1% improvement from last year (68.5% in 2023 to 68.6% in 2024). The World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap Report paints a picture of persistent gender inequality due to consecutive economic shocks, breakdowns in social infrastructure and deep-seated inequalities that are worsened by ongoing system transformations to a high-tech, green economy. Governments have a necessary role to play in pushing forward policies for gender equality in the economy, education and in social infrastructure like healthcare and family care—but they need help. Employers, this is your cue to adopt gender-sensitive approaches in your workplace and in your value chain. For example, increasing parental leave and making it more accessible to both women and men can help reduce the number of women needing to drop out of the workforce. Likewise, investing in leadership pipelines and skills training for women can help them bridge the gap between entry-level roles and the C-Suite, especially in the roles of the future.
Key points from the report
- The gender gap is inching slowly towards closed: The Global Gender Gap Report benchmarks gender parity on a 0-100 scale across four dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. It looks at 146 countries, which make up two-thirds of the world’s economies. In this year’s assessment, WEF found that the overall global gender gap score in 2024 is 68.5% closed across all 146 countries, reflecting an increase of 0.1 percentage points from last year. This meager progress is similar to progress made over the last 18 years of the WEF’s assessment: when considering the 101 countries covered continuously in the benchmark between 2006 to 2024, the overall gain has only increased by 0.1% to 68.6%. WEF estimates that this slow progress means that full gender parity will take 134 years—five generations beyond the 2030 target set by the Sustainable Development Goals. That said, even though no country has reached full parity, 97% of the countries in this year’s benchmark have closed more than 60% of their gap, reflecting individual gains. The top ten countries are Iceland (93.5%), Finland (87.5%), Norway (87.5%), New Zealand (83.5%), Sweden (81.6%), Nicaragua (81.1%), Germany (81%), Namibia (80.5%), Ireland (80.2%) and Spain (79.7%). The ten bottom countries are Sudan (56.8%), Pakistan (57.0%), Chad (57.6%), Iran (57.9%), Guinea (60.1%), Mali (60.4%), Democratic Republic of the Congo (60.9%), Algeria (61.2%), Niger (62.8%) and Morocco (62.8%).
- A skills and leadership gap in the workplace: Some of the greatest gaps are in political empowerment (169 years to gender parity) and economic participation and opportunity (152 years to gender parity). WEF identifies gaps in women’s workforce representation and leadership, with women accounting for 42% of the global workforce and only 31.7% of senior leaders. WEF attributes this gap in part to the “drop to the top”—in 2024, women occupy almost half of entry-level positions but only one-quarter of C-suite roles. This gap has continually increased over the past several years, which may be linked to worsening macroeconomic conditions. Unemployment is predicted to rise in lower-income economies and the jobs gap (that measures people looking for work) is disproportionately made up of women. In addition, the demands of a transition to a technologically advanced, green economy may put women at a further disadvantage. For example, women have lower representation in STEM fields (they make up just 28.2% of the STEM workforce) and there is a gender gap in opportunities to upskill, with women perceiving fewer opportunities to learn digital, analytical and green skills.
- Equitable care systems are an important lever to parity: Overall, continued efforts towards gender equality in society are important, including in government policies, economic opportunities and social change. But one of the key ways that WEF highlights to help close the gender gap is ensuring equitable care systems. The COVID pandemic spurred a higher need for caregiving responsibilities, many of which fall to women. Globally, WEF identifies that there are big gaps in formal protections and provisions for parental leave, and in perceptions of men’s and women’s roles in caregiving. WEF sees some progress on this front, with the average number of maternity leave days having increased from 63 to 107 over the least 50 years. Paternity leave days, meanwhile, have increased from less than one day to nine days on average. This reflects an important area of opportunity for employers to promote gender parity in the workforce. WEF closes with a call to action for business leaders and government to participate in its Global Gender Parity Sprint 2030 and contribute to “reshaping labour markets, enhancing industry-level systems and integrating gender parity into the heart of global transformations in technology, climate action and care.”
