Twenty years of progress on gender parity now fragile, WEF report finds

KAMPALA, September 17, 2026 – Twenty years after the World Economic Forum [WEF] first measured the global gender gap, the world is closer to parity than ever, but progress remains fragile, with gains reversing in some areas, according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2026, published on Wednesday.

Women are now reaching senior leadership positions in business and government at levels that were rare in 2006, yet they remain largely underrepresented in roles that carry the greatest economic and political influence.

The 20th edition of the report, the longest-standing index of its kind, benchmarks 145 economies across four dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Globally, the gender gap is now 69.2 percent closed, with 100 percent representing full parity, up 0.4 percentage points over the past year.

Among the 97 economies tracked since 2006, the gap has closed by 5.2 percentage points to 69.4 percent, the highest level recorded.

Economic participation and opportunity [61.7 percent] and political empowerment [22.1 percent] are the dimensions furthest from parity. At the current rate of progress, full parity across all measures remains 120 years away.

“Twenty years of data show that gender parity is achievable. Economies at every income level have made progress, so the barrier is not a lack of resources,” said Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director at the WEF.

“Parity is a foundation for growth and competitiveness, but it is not inevitable. To accelerate, governments and employers need to learn from the policies that work and apply them faster. A new economy demands a new approach to talent.”

Rankings and movers

Iceland leads the report’s rankings for the 17th consecutive year, with 93 percent of its gender gap closed, and remains the only country to have closed more than 90 percent of its gap.

Finland [87.2 percent] and Norway [85.7 percent] retain second and third places for the third consecutive year. Namibia [84.5 percent] climbed four places to fourth, making it the highest-ranked country in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The United Kingdom [84.2 percent], New Zealand [82.8 percent], Sweden [82.3 percent], Australia [81.9 percent], Germany [81.7 percent] and Ireland [81.4 percent] complete the top 10.

Australia entered the top 10 for the first time. Four economies have appeared in the top 10 in every edition since 2006: Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Progress has come in phases. Improvement peaked before the pandemic, when 76 percent of tracked economies recorded gains, before widespread setbacks. Since 2024, more than half of indexed economies have regained momentum.

The biggest climbers in this year’s ranking are Kenya [65th, up 33 places], Ghana [56th, up 32 places], Guatemala [50th, up 31 places], Angola [87th, up 30 places] and Czechia [77th, up 25 places].

The economies that have made the most progress in closing their gender gaps since 2006, each narrowing their gaps by at least 12 percentage points, are Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Iceland, Mexico, Namibia and Nepal.

Biggest gains, clearest reversal

Nearly every economy tracked since 2006 has improved, and the first decade of the index delivered faster gains than the second.

Political empowerment has gained the most ground over the past 20 years, rising by 8 percentage points among the economies tracked throughout the period. In 2006, there was one woman minister for every 8.1 men; today, there is one woman for every 4.3 men.

In parliaments, the ratio has moved from one woman for every 5.6 men to approximately one woman for every three men.

However, political empowerment is also the dimension showing the clearest signs of reversal. It now scores lower than it did in 2016 and slipped a further 0.4 percentage points over the past year.

At the highest level, the share of economies in the report’s constant sample of 97 economies led by a woman head of state peaked at 27 percent in 2022, the highest level in half a century. It has since fallen back to 2016 levels, erasing the gains made during the first part of the decade.

Regional performance

Europe reclaims the top regional position, with 75.7 percent of its gender gap closed, having narrowed the gap by 7 percentage points since 2006. Seven of the global top 10 performers are European.

The region leads the world in political empowerment [37 percent], where the parity score measured at head-of-state level has tripled since 2006.

Northern America ranks second at 75.2 percent, slipping 0.6 percentage points from last year and losing the top regional position as Canada improves its score while the score of the United States declines.

The region leads globally in economic participation and opportunity [77.1 percent] and educational attainment [100 percent]. Its political empowerment score fell 3.3 percentage points, driven mainly by lower ministerial representation.

Latin America and the Caribbean ranks third at 74.5 percent and leads the world in health and survival [97.7 percent].

The region has the fastest long-term trajectory of any region, although it is still on course to close its gender gap in 60 years at the current rate of progress. It has narrowed its gender gap by 8.6 percentage points since 2006, the largest improvement of any region.

Eastern Asia and the Pacific rises to fourth at 70.3 percent, with New Zealand and Australia both in the global top 10. The region records the second-highest economic participation and opportunity score [71.4 percent].

Central Asia ranks fifth at 70.0 percent. The region has improved by 2.9 percentage points since 2006 and is projected to be the last to reach parity based on the current pace of progress.

Sub-Saharan Africa ranks sixth at 68.8 percent, up 1.6 percentage points from last year, and shows the widest variation of any region, with Namibia ranking fourth globally.

Its strongest long-term gain is parity among legislators, senior officials and managers, which has increased by 28.7 percentage points since 2006.

Southern Asia ranks seventh at 64.5 percent and remains the lowest-scoring region in economic participation and opportunity [40.9 percent].

It has recorded the largest educational gain of any region since 2006, rising by 15 percentage points, with almost all economies now at parity in tertiary enrolment.

Middle East and Northern Africa ranks eighth at 62.5 percent, improving by 0.2 percentage points from last year.

The educational gender gap has narrowed to less than 3 percent, while parity in political empowerment remains the lowest of any region at 11.5 percent.

Parity in power

Drawing on data from the LinkedIn Economic Graph Research Institute, the report finds that since 2024, women’s share of top-level management has stalled at an average of below 30 percent across 62 economies.

The pipeline behind it is narrowing too. In the 16 economies with hiring data being tracked, women’s share of new hires into those roles has fallen every year since 2022, from 34.8 percent to 32.3 percent in the first two quarters of 2026.

Within the C-suite, women hold 19.1 percent of chief executive officer roles and around a quarter of chief financial officer and chief operating officer roles, positions that typically are among the most common routes to the top job.

Meanwhile, women hold around two-thirds of chief human resources and chief people officer roles, but occupy fewer than one in five chief information officer roles and fewer than one in 10 chief technology officer roles.

This pattern is repeated across government roles. The number of ministerial portfolios headed by women has risen by 26 percent since 2008, but only one in 10 was considered high influence then, a share that is virtually unchanged today.

The report says this points to a barrier in how positions are allocated rather than in the availability of talent.

Data from the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law project shows that governments have significantly broadened legal frameworks related to gender parity over the past decades, with a particular boom in activity occurring in the early 2000s.

While 96 percent of reforms have expanded legal rights for women worldwide, regions have followed differing reform trajectories over time, reflecting context-specific moments and reform priorities.

Overall, Europe, Northern America, and Latin America and the Caribbean carried out much of their reform activity between the 1990s and the 2000s. The Middle East and Northern Africa had a later start but progressively increased their reform activity, becoming the most reform-intensive region in the current decade.

AI: A gap and an opening

Women are less represented in artificial intelligence [AI] firms than in comparable non-AI firms at every level, representing 36.6 percent and 44.8 percent of employees, respectively, at the individual contributor level, and 25.3 percent and 27.7 percent, respectively, in top management, according to LinkedIn data.

Within AI occupations, women are concentrated in data annotation roles, which are often lower-paid AI positions, while making up just 19.3 percent of AI engineers.

The share of women founders with AI engineering skills has risen from 2.3 percent in 2019 to 8.7 percent in the first two quarters of 2026, although men continue to move faster.

“Progress towards gender parity in leadership has stalled for a fourth year. Based on the current trajectory, girls born today will not see equal representation at the top in their lifetime. And the issue is even more pronounced for women working in AI roles,” said Sue Duke, Managing Director for EMEA and LATAM and Head of Global Public Policy and Economic Graph at LinkedIn.

“But we can change that trajectory by tackling the persistent barriers holding women back as their careers progress – from better investment in skills, hiring based on capability, and normalising non-linear careers.”

https://thecooperator.news/ica-gender-equality-committee-elects-leadership-for-2026-2030-term/

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