According to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Gender Gap Index, a measure of gender equality that takes into account women’s access to resources and political empowerment, the United States ranks 51st out of the 149 countries evaluated.
Gender equality may not seem like an environmental issue, but it is one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. And Project Drawdown, a research organization focused on climate solutions, ranks women’s access to education and healthcare in the top 10 levers to curbing climate change. That’s because women are especially vulnerable to climate change, and they have an important role in determining the health and size of families. But in every single country evaluated by the WEF, they don’t have the same access to resources as men.
For example, in the United States, women earn about 80 cents for every dollar earned by men in comparable jobs. And this is actually better than most counties: WEF found that on average, women only earn 63 cents to the man’s dollar.
Each year, the WEF evaluates gender parity based on access to education, healthcare, economic opportunities and political involvement, and provides rankings based on each of these indicators. The organization also provides overall rankings that combine the four indicators.
Globally, the overall Gender Gap Index is 0.68, which means that women have 32% less access to the same resources and opportunities as men across the four indicators.
The map below shows the Gender Gap Index for each country. The United States ranks 51st in gender parity, with a Gender Gap Index of 0.71. The country ranks behind its neighbors, Canada (16), Cuba (23) and Mexico (50).
Scandinavian countries lead the way in gender parity. Iceland is the most gender-equal country, according to WEF’s 2018 numbers, followed by Norway, Sweden and Finland. As well as the best overall gender parity score, Iceland has the highest rank for equal political empowerment. In 2018, women held 38% of seats in the country’s national parliament, according to data from the World Bank. In 2017, women made up 48% of those seats.
Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Chad are in the bottom five spots. In last place, Yemen has the highest gender gap, and there is a 70% gap in economic participation. There are no women in Yemen’s parliament.
The chart below shows the top 20 countries for overall Index score.
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