GGGR 2023

In-focus country performances: Top 10 and 15 most populous1.6 This section illustrates the state of country-level gender parity across the four dimensions and sheds light on important dynamics. The share of the global female population represented by the countries discussed in this section is both statistically and strategically significant to monitoring and benchmarking efforts. Based on the data that was officially reported for the period covered in this edition, distinct trends and shifts were observed in the index’s top 10 as well as the 15 most populous countries,2 which, combined, represent two-thirds of the world’s female population. Top 10 countries Iceland continues to incrementally advance towards gender parity since the inaugural 2006 edition and ranks 1st for the 14th consecutive year. Iceland has closed 91.2% of the gender gap, which is 0.4 percentage points higher than the previous edition. The overall gender parity ranking is buoyed by its relatively strong performance across the Political Empowerment and Economic Participation and Opportunity subindexes. Iceland has almost doubled its gender parity score in Political Empowerment since 2006. Iceland has been led by a female head of state for 25 of the last 50 years and more than two-fifth of its ministerial and parliamentary positions are held by women, which has propelled the country to close 90.1% of the gender gap. While Iceland ranks relatively high at 14th (score 79.6%) on the Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex, the gender parity score has suffered setbacks since 2021 (84.6%) and now is closer to its 2017 level. Specifically, parity in wages and in representation among senior officials has declined since 2021. However, since 2006, Iceland maintains parity in the share of women in technical roles. On Health and Survival, parity marginally regresses, partly owing to the 1.5 years decline in the healthy life expectancy of women since the 2020 edition. On Education Attainment (99.1%) Iceland remains almost at parity. Progress towards gender parity in Norway has been steady, resulting in Norway improving its gender parity score to 87.9% and climbing one rank to the 2nd position in this year’s index. A major part of Norway’s continuous improvement can be ascribed to its achievements on Political Empowerment (score 76.5%), which has increased by 27.1 percentage points since 2006. Women now assume 50% of the ministerial positions and 46.2% of parliamentary positions. Further, the country had a female head of state for 18 of the last 50 years. Norway also reaches parity in enrolment rates in primary education and tertiary education. However, gender parity on the Economic Opportunity and Participation (80%) subindex – though recovered slightly since the last edition – is still 1.8 percentage points below the 2016 level. Since 2016, the gender gap in estimated earned income has shrunk and full parity in technical roles has been achieved and maintained. However, the gender gap in senior roles (score 50.3%) has been widening and its labour-force participation rate (84.5%) is yet to recover since the pandemic hit. Additionally, women’s healthy life expectancy at birth of 71.6 years is still 2.7 years below the 2020 edition, worsening the gap in health attainment by 1.1 percentage point to 96.1% compared to results from the 2020 edition. After a sharp rebound in gender parity scores between 2017 and 2021, Finland’s progress has been marginal. It advances by 0.3 percentage points since the last edition to register 86.3% parity in the 2023 edition, ranking 3rd globally. Finland maintains its longstanding gender parity on Educational Attainment. The recent tenure of a female head of state and parity at ministerial position boosts parity on Political Empowerment to 70%, which is the fourth-highest score on this pillar globally. Yet, progress on Economic Participation and Opportunity (78.3%) seems to be stagnating, marked by slight reversals in parity at senior positions and wage equality since the last edition. However, women have been representing 50% or more of technical positions since the inaugural 2006 edition. On the other hand, like several other high- income economies,3 the healthy life expectancy of women declined by almost 1.5 years since 2006, partly widening the present gender gap on Health and Survival (97%). In the last five years, New Zealand has gained more than 5 percentage points to close 85.6% of the overall gender gap, ranking 4th globally in 2023. With parity in parliamentary positions, and a female head of state for 16 of the last 50 years, New Zealand has the world’s third-highest level of parity on Political Empowerment. New Zealand has bridged the gender divide in enrolment across all levels of education and literacy rate. In terms of Economic Participation and Opportunity (73.2%), there remains a 12.5% gender gap in labour-force participation. Estimated earned incomes of both men and women have been increasing since 2006, but men’s income increased at a higher rate than that of women, worsening the gap (score 64.2%) by 4 percentage points since. On Health and Survival, women have lost three years of healthy life expectancy since the 2020 edition, reducing parity on the subindex (score 96.6%). Sweden maintains its rank of 5th since the last edition; it has closed 81.5% of the gender gap, 0.7 percentage points lower than the 2018 edition. With 46.4% women parliamentarians and 47.8% women ministers who head ministries, Political Empowerment is at 50.3% parity. Parity on Economic Participation and Opportunity (79.5%) Global Gender Gap Report 2023 27