World Economic Forum (WEF) on November 2015 released the Global Gender Gap Report 2015. It ranked 145 economies according to how well they are leveraging their female talent pool, based on economic, educational, health-based and political indicators.
As per the report, the global gender gap across health, education, economic opportunity and politics has closed by only 4 percent in the past 10 years suggesting it will take another 118 years to close this gap completely. And, out of the 145 countries surveyed, while Iceland topped the Gender Gap Index for the seventh year in a row, India stood at the 108th position.
Main Highlights of the Global Gender Gap Report 2015
• Top 5 countries with high gender equality are Iceland (1), Norway (2), Finland (3), Sweden (4) and Ireland (5).
• Five countries with least gender equality are Iran (141), Chad (142), Syria (143), Pakistan (144) and Yemen (145).
• The Nordic countries still dominate the Global Gender Gap Index. Ireland is the highest placed non-Nordic country, ranking 5th. Rwanda (6), Philippines (7) and New Zealand (10) are the only non-European countries in the top 10; and the United States falls eight places to 28th.
• As compared to 2006, an extra quarter of a billion women have entered the labor force in 2015 that is pegged at 1.75 billion.