World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report for 2018 Released - Iceland Sits at the Top
On December 18th the World Economic Forum (WEF) released the annually published Global Gender Gap Report for 2018. For the tenth year in a row, Iceland sits at the top of the Global Gender Gap Report index, followed by Norway, Sweden and Finland. The index measures countries’ progress towards gender parity by focusing on four thematic dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. WEF’s press release states that despite a slightly narrower gender gap in 2018, there is a drop in three of four pillars. There is a stagnation in the proportion of women in the workforce and there is a decrease in women’s political representation. Furthermore, there is a greater inequality in access to health and education. Improvements are found within wage equality and within the number of women in professional positions. Regardless of these positive findings within the Economic Participation pillar, data indicate that proportionally fewer women participate in the workforce. WEF names a few potential reasons for these findings such as traditional roles performed by women and a lack of infrastructure needed to support women in the workforce, such as childcare and eldercare. WEF predicts that at the current rate of change, the global gender gap will take 108 years to close.