full parity in the region will be achieved in 149 years. –In comparison to other regions, the Middle East and North Africa remains the furthest away from parity, with a 62.6% parity score. This is a 0.9 percentage-point decline in parity since the last edition for this region, based on the constant sample of countries covered since 2006. The United Arab Emirates, Israel and Bahrain have achieved the highest parity in the region, while Morocco, Oman and Algeria rank the lowest. The region’s three most populous countries – Egypt, Algeria and Morocco – register declines in their parity scores since the last edition. At the current rate of progress, full regional parity will be attained in 152 years. Evolving gender gaps in the global labour market The state of gender parity in the labour market remains a major challenge. Not only has women’s participation in the labour market globally slipped in recent years, but other markers of economic opportunity have been showing substantive disparities between women and men. While women have (re-)entered the labour force at higher rates than men globally, leading to a small recovery in gender parity in the labour-force participation rate since the 2022 edition, gaps remain wide overall and are apparent in several specific dimensions. –Evolving gender gaps in the global labour market : Women have been (re-)entering the workforce at a slightly higher rate than men, resulting in a modest recovery from last year’s low. Between the 2022 and 2023 edition, parity in the labour-force participation rate increased from 63% to 64%. However, the recovery in women’s labour-force participation remains unfinished, as parity is still at the second-lowest point since the first edition of the index in 2006 and significantly below its 2009 peak of 69%. Compounding these patterns, women continue to face higher unemployment rates than men, with a global unemployment rate at around 4.5% for women and 4.3% for men. Even when women secure employment, they often face substandard working conditions: a significant portion of the recovery in employment since 2020 can be attributed to informal employment, whereby out of every five jobs created for women, four are within the informal economy; for men, the ratio is two out of every three jobs. –Workforce representation across industries : Global data provided by LinkedIn shows persistent skewing in women’s representation in the workforce and leadership across industries. In LinkedIn’s sample, which covers 163 countries, women account for 41.9% of the workforce in 2023, yet the share of women in senior leadership positions (Director, Vice- President (VP) or C-suite) is at 32.2% in 2023, nearly 10 percentage points lower. Women’s representation drops to 25% in C-suite positions on average, which is just more than half of the representation in entry-level positions, at 46%. Different industries display different intensities and patterns when it comes to this “drop to the top”. Women fare relatively better in industries such as Consumer Services, Retail, and Education, which register ratios of C-suite vs entry level representation between 64% and 68%. Construction, Financial Services, and Real Estate present the toughest conditions for aspiring female leaders, with a ratio of C-suite to entry-level representation of less than 50%. For the past eight years, the proportion of women hired into leadership positions has been steadily increasing by about 1% per year globally. However, this trend shows a clear reversal starting in 2022, which brings the 2023 rate back to 2021 levels. –Gender gaps in the labour markets of the future : Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) occupations are an important set of jobs that are well remunerated and expected to grow in significance and scope in the future. Linkedin data on members’ job profiles show that women remain significantly underrepresented in the STEM workforce. Women make up almost half (49.3%) of total employment across non-STEM occupations, but just 29.2% of all STEM workers. While the percentage of female STEM graduates entering into STEM employment is increasing with every cohort, the numbers on the integration of STEM university graduates into the labour market show that the retention of women in STEM even one year after graduating sees a significant drop. Women currently account for 29.4% of entry-level workers; yet for high-level leadership roles such as VP and C-suite, representation drops to 17.8% and 12.4%, respectively. When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) specifically, talent availability overall has surged, increasing six times between 2016 and 2022, yet female representation in AI is progressing very slowly. The percentage of women working in AI today is approximately 30%, roughly 4 percentage points higher than it was in 2016. –Gender gaps in the skills of the future : Online learning offers flexibility, accessibility and customization, enabling learners to acquire knowledge in a manner that suits their specific needs and circumstances. However, women and men currently do not have equal opportunties and access to these online platforms, given the persistent digital divide. Even when they do use these platforms, there are gender gaps in skilling, especially those skills that are projected to grow in importance and demand. Data from Coursera suggests that as of 2022, except for teaching and mentoring courses, there is disparity in enrolment in every skill category. For enrolment in technology skills such as Global Gender Gap Report 2023 7

GGGR 2023