The Global Gender Gap Report 2015
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People and their talents are among the core drivers of
sustainable, long-term economic growth. If half of these
talents are underdeveloped or underutilized, growth
and sustainability will be compromised. Moreover,
there is a compelling and fundamental values case for
empowering women: women represent one half of the
global population—they deserve equal access to health,
education, earning power and political representation.
The current inequalities risk being exacerbated in the
future. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will transform the
global economy and society in an unprecedented manner.
Industries are already undergoing profound shifts in their
business models as technology is disrupting current
methods of production, consumption and delivery. Labour
markets are also rapidly changing in this context. As a
result, gender gaps are set to increase in some industries
as jobs traditionally held by women become obsolete, while
at the same time opportunities are emerging in wholly new
domains. We must clearly understand the progress thus far
as well as the future outlook to reap the opportunities and
mitigate the challenges presented by these trends.
Through the Global Gender Gap Report, the World
Economic Forum quantifies the magnitude of genderbased 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
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.
The Global Gender Gap Index was developed in
2006, partially to address the need for a consistent and
comprehensive measure for gender equality that can
track a country’s progress over time. In some countries,
progress is occurring rapidly regardless of starting point
and income level, but in others, change is much slower
or negligible. A decade of data has revealed that the
Economic Participation and Opportunity gender gap has
been closed by 59%, with slow improvements of 3% over
the past ten years. In Educational Attainment, the gender
gap has decreased compared to 2006 and now stands at
95%. Health and Survival is the subindex that is closest to
parity, at 96%, but the gap has widened slightly compared
to 2006. While the most relative improvement over the last
decade has been made in Political Empowerment, the
gender gap in this area remains the widest, with only 23%
being closed.
The magnitude of national gender gaps is the
combined result of various socioeconomic, policy and
cultural variables. Governments thus have a leading
role to play as the closure or continuation of these gaps
is intrinsically connected to the framework of national
policies in place. The Index does not seek to set priorities
for countries but rather 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. In addition,
governments must align their efforts with those of business
and civil society to foster growth that includes both
men and women. The World Economic Forum’s Global
Challenge on Gender Parity seeks to promote public-private
cooperation to close gender gaps, based in part on the
analytical tools provided by this Report as well as others.
We would like to express our appreciation to Yasmina
Bekhouche, Project Lead, Gender Parity Initiative; Paulina
Padilla Ugarte, Specialist, Employment and Gender Parity
Initiatives; Vesselina Ratcheva, Data Analyst, Employment
and Gender Parity Initiatives; and Saadia Zahidi, Head of
Employment and Gender Initiatives, for their dedication to
this Report. We would also like to thank Lena Woodward,
Valerie Peyre, Kristin Keveloh and Till Leopold for their
support at the World Economic Forum. We are grateful
for the ongoing support of Ricardo Hausmann, Director,
Center for International Development, Harvard University,
and Laura D. Tyson, Director of the Institute for Business
and Social Impact at the Haas School of Business at the
University of California, Berkeley, and the chair of the Board
of Trustees of the Blum Center for Developing Economies.
Finally, we welcome the untiring support of the Partners
of the Global Challenge on Gender Parity and their
commitment to closing gender gaps
It is our hope that this latest edition of the Report will
serve as a call to action to spur change on an issue that is
central to our future. Ultimately, it is through each individual
adapting his or her beliefs and actions that change can
occur. We call upon every reader of this Report to join
these efforts.