September 16, 2026
- Nearly every economy
tracked since 2006 has advanced gender parity, yet full
parity is 120 years away. - Political empowerment has
seen the largest gains since 2006 but has reversed since
2016. The share of economies led by a woman peaked in 2022
and has fallen back to 2016 levels. - Women have
reached the C-suite and cabinets but are underrepresented in
roles carrying the greatest economic and political
influence: women hold 19.1% of chief executive officer
roles, while only one in 10 ministerial portfolios held by
women is considered high influence. - Women account
for fewer than one in five AI engineers and are
underrepresented at every level in AI
firms.
Twenty years after the World Economic
Forum first measured the global gender gap, the world is
closer to parity than ever, but progress is fragile, with
gains reversing in some areas, according to the Global
Gender Gap Report 2026, published today.
Women now reach senior leadership in business and government
at levels that were rare in 2006 yet 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 now stands at 69.2% closed, where 100% represents full
parity, up 0.4 percentage points over the past
year.
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Among the 97 economies tracked since 2006, the
gap has closed by 5.2 percentage points to 69.4%, the
highest level recorded. Economic participation and
opportunity (61.7%) and political empowerment (22.1%) are
the dimensions furthest away from parity. At the current
rate of progress, full parity across all measures is still
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, World Economic Forum.
“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 in the report’s rankings
for the 17th consecutive year, with 93% of the gender gap
closed, and remains the only country to have closed more
than 90% of its gap. Finland (87.2%) and Norway (85.7%) hold
second and third for the third year running. Namibia (84.5%)
climbed four places to fourth, the highest-ranked country in
Sub-Saharan Africa, followed by the United Kingdom (84.2%),
New Zealand (82.8%), Sweden (82.3%), Australia (81.9%),
Germany (81.7%) and Ireland (81.4%).
Australia entered
the top 10 for the first time. Four economies have appeared
in every top 10 since 2006: Iceland, Finland, Norway and
Sweden.
Progress
has come in phases. Improvement peaked before the pandemic,
when 76% 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), Guatemala (50th, up 31), Angola (87th, up 30)
and Czechia (77th, up 25).
The economies that have
progressed the most in closing their gender gaps since 2006,
each closing at least 12 percentage points of their gap, 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 in the last 20 years, up 8 percentage
points among the economies tracked throughout. In 2006,
there was one woman minister for every 8.1 men; today it is
one for every 4.3. In parliaments, the ratio has moved from
one woman for every 5.6 men to one for every three or
so.
But 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 in the past year. At the very top, the share of
economies – in the report’s constant sample of 97
economies – led by a woman head of state peaked at 27% in
2022, the highest in half a century, and has since fallen
back to 2016 levels, erasing the gains made in the first
part of the decade.
Regional
performance
Europe reclaims the top
regional position with 75.7% of its gender gap closed,
having narrowed it by 7 percentage points since 2006. Seven
of the global top 10 performers across the index are
European. The region leads the world in political
empowerment (37%), where the parity score measured at
head-of-state level has tripled since
2006.
Northern America ranks second
at 75.2%, slipping 0.6 percentage points from last year and
losing the top regional spot as Canada improves its score
and the score of the United States declines. The region
leads globally in economic participation and opportunity
(77.1%) and educational attainment (100%). Its political
empowerment score fell 3.3 percentage points, driven mainly
by lower ministerial representation.
Latin
America and the Caribbean holds third at 74.5% and
leads the world in health and survival (97.7%). The region
has the fastest long-term trajectory of any region, though
it is still only on course to close its 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%, with New Zealand
and Australia both in the global top 10. The region records
the second-highest economic participation and opportunity
score (71.4%).
Central Asia ranks
fifth at 70.0%. The region has improved by 2.9 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%, up 1.6 percentage
points from last year, and shows the widest variation of any
region, with Namibia fourth in the world. Its strongest
long-term gain is parity among legislators, senior officials
and managers, up 28.7 percentage points since
2006.
Southern Asia ranks seventh at
64.5% and remains the lowest-scoring region in economic
participation and opportunity (40.9%). It has recorded the
largest educational gain of any region since 2006, up 15
percentage points, with almost all economies now at parity
in tertiary enrolment.
Middle East and
Northern Africa ranks eighth at 62.5%, improving by
0.2 percentage points from last year. The educational gender
gap has narrowed to under 3%, while parity in political
empowerment remains the lowest of any region at
11.5%.
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 under 30% 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% to 32.3% in the first two quarters of 2026.
Within the C-suite, women hold 19.1% of chief executive
officer roles and around a quarter of chief financial
officer and chief operating officer roles, the 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 under
one in five chief information and under one in 10 chief
technology officer roles.
This pattern repeats across
government roles. The number of ministerial portfolios
headed by women has risen 26% since 2008, but only one in 10
was high influence then – a share virtually unchanged
today. 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 governments significantly
broadened the legal frameworks related to gender parity in
past decades, with a particular boom in activity occurring
in the early millennium. While 96% 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 enforced much of their reform activity between the
1990s and the 2000s. Middle East and Northern Africa had a
later start yet progressively increased its reform activity
until 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 respectively 36.6% and 44.8% of
employees at individual contributor level, and 25.3% to
27.7% of 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% of AI engineers. The share of women founders
with AI engineering skills has risen from 2.3% in 2019 to
8.7% in the first two quarters of 2026, though 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 & LATAM and
Head of Global Public Policy & 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.”
About the Global Gender Gap
Report
The Global Gender Gap Report, now in its
20th edition, benchmarks gender parity across four
dimensions: economic participation and opportunity,
educational attainment, health and survival, and political
empowerment. The 2026 edition covers 145 economies and
tracks long-term trends across a constant sample of 97
economies included in every edition since 2006. First
published in 2006 and using a consistent methodology since
then, it is the longest-standing index of its kind. Scores
are expressed as the share of the gender gap an economy has
closed, where 100% is full parity.
The report supports
the Global
Gender Parity Sprint to 2030, a World Economic
Forum platform that mobilizes a coalition of businesses,
governments and international organizations to accelerate
progress on economic gender parity.
About the
Sustainable Development Impact Meetings 2026
The
Sustainable Development Impact Meetings 2026 (SDIM26) will
take place in New York, USA on 21-24 September and bring
together senior leaders from across sectors and regions to
advance solutions to shared opportunities and challenges,
with a particular focus on long-term impact and building
momentum before the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
2027.
