By Sharon Atieno
Strides in political empowerment and economic participation have led to a remarkable improvement in the gender gap since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025 notes that through these efforts, the gender parity gap has closed at nearly 70% while educational attainment and health and survival have maintained near-parity levels above 95%.
The report finds a slight correlation between the current income levels of the countries covered and their gender gaps, with richer economies being slightly more gender equal.
Overall, high-income economies have closed 74.3% of their gender gap – slightly higher than the averages observed in lower-income groups: 69.6% among upper-middle income, 66.0% among lower-middle-income and 66.4% among low-income economies.
Despite this, the report notes that top performers among the three lower-income groups have closed a greater share of their gender gaps than over half of the economies in the high-income group.
“While resources matter, it is not richer countries alone that can afford to invest in gender parity – economies can integrate parity into their growth strategies at all levels of development. Historically, those who have done well at developing and integrating their full human capital tend to have more sustainable and prosperous economies as a result. Leveraging the full base of talent and diverse ideas in an economy can unlock creativity and drive innovation, growth and productivity,” the report notes.
It finds that the fastest-moving economies demonstrate that rapid acceleration is possible when gender parity becomes a national priority, noting that the economies that proved most successful at bridging their gender gaps across each income group respectively, are Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Ecuador, Bangladesh and Ethiopia.
“At a time of heightened global economic uncertainty and a low growth outlook combined with technological and demographic change, advancing gender parity represents a key force for economic renewal,”
Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director, World Economic Forum underscores the need to advance gender parity as a force for economic renewal amid heightened global economic uncertainty and a low growth outlook combined with technological and demographic change.
“The evidence is clear. Economies that have made decisive progress towards parity are positioning themselves for stronger, more innovative, and more resilient economic progress,” said Saadia.
However, the report notes that though women represent 41.2% of the global workforce, a stark leadership gap persists, with women holding only 28.8% of top leadership positions.
Educational attainment is rising, but its economic return remains uneven. Women outpace men in higher education, but their presence in senior leadership stagnates as education levels rise – even the most educated women represent less than one in three top managers. This underutilization of human capital represents both a systemic inefficiency and a missed economic opportunity.
“Women’s progress in leadership continues to decline. As the global economy transforms, artificial intelligence (AI) accelerates, and countries look to combat stagnating growth, this leadership gap should set alarm bells ringing,” said Sue Duke, Global Head of Public Policy, LinkedIn. “The varied experience and uniquely human skills that women bring to the leadership table are essential to unlocking the full promise of an AI-powered economy, yet are being overlooked at exactly the moment they are needed most.”
The path to leadership is less and less linear for workers overall, but especially for women. LinkedIn data reveals that it is now more than double as common for leaders to have worked in at least two different industries, functions or companies – suggesting both greater adaptability and potential barriers to linear advancement within single sectors.
“Career breaks are at the heart of this dynamic, with women being 55.2% more likely to take them than men. Women also spend on average half a year more than men away from work, with caregiving responsibilities driving most of these interruptions. This shift from rigid career ladders reflects the reality of modern work patterns, where lateral moves, sector transitions and re-entry after breaks are becoming the norm rather than the exception,” the report highlights.
The Global Gender Gap Report, now in its 19th edition, benchmarks gender-based gaps in economic participation, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. It integrates the latest internationally comparable statistics from organizations such as the International Labour Organization, UNESCO, UN Women, World Bank, and the World Health Organization, as well as data from the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law dataset and LinkedIn’s Economic Graph.
