Global Gender Gap Report 202521Since its launch, nearly every dimension of the index has registered some advancement. The most progress since 2006 has been made in Political Empowerment, with a total gain of +9 percentage points from its original score of 14.3% to the latest of 23.4%. Compared to 2024, results from this edition notably improved by nearly one percentage point (+0.8), translating to a shortened timeline for the achievement of political parity of 162 years, compared to last edition’s estimate of 169 years. Nevertheless, Political Empowerment remains the subindex where the gender gap is largest, at 76.6%. Economic Participation and Opportunity has gained +5.6 percentage points over time, from a 2006 score of 55.1% to a 2025 score of 60.7% – registering the second strongest performance among subindexes, while continuing to be the second largest gender gap in the index. Compared to last year, nearly every indicator showed increased parity scores, contributing to an overall subindex increase of half a percentage point since 2024. Based on this improved speed of progress, economic parity is 17 years closer than in last edition’s estimates, at 135 years. Educational Attainment has increased its initial 2006 score of 90.8% to 95.7% in 2025, the highest to date. Every indicator in the subindex has slightly improved parity scores compared to 2024, with three of the four indicators having closed over 96% of the gender gap. A modest +0.2 percentage point improvement reset the timeline for educational parity to 17 years, compared to the 20-year estimate from the 18th edition. In contrast, Health and Survival stands as the one subindex with a negative evolution over time. The initial score posted in this subindex was 96.3% in 2006, which has since decreased to 96.1% in 2025. While parity in sex ratio at birth has continued to improve, it has failed to counter parity decreases in healthy life expectancy, which has subsequently pushed the subindex performance below others.

GGGR 2025