GGGR 2025

Global Gender Gap Report 202536New Zealand New Zealand ranks 5th in 2025, with an overall gender parity score of 82.7%, marking a slight decline from its peak of 85.6% in 2023. After notable progress between 2019 and 2023, the Political Empowerment subindex has experienced setbacks. Parity in ministerial positions has dropped by nearly 30 percentage points, from 81.8% in 2023 to 53.8% in 2025. Similarly, parity in parliamentary representation now stands at 83.6%, down from full parity achieved in 2023. The Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex exhibits a downward trend, despite minor fluctuations over time. There is further a decline in executive perceptions of wage equality. In 2025, New Zealand falls below the 70% parity threshold for the first time since 2007. Sweden In 2025, Sweden is positioned 6th with a score of 81.7%. However, these results fall within the narrow trajectory Sweden has been tracing since the index was launched in 2006. The economy has advanced just 0.4 percentage points over time and this year fell below its best parity score of 82.3%, achieved in 2015 and again in 2021. Despite this, the state of economic parity in Sweden is much improved from last year, shifting from 79.4% to 81.8% in 2025. The labour-force participation rate increases for both men and women, but the jump in the female participation rate was significantly higher. Similarly, higher rates of female representation in senior economic roles (+6 percentage points) boosts the parity score for these indicators and the subindex overall. In Educational Attainment, Sweden achieves full parity across indicators on account of women engaging with educational opportunities in equal or higher shares than men. While parity in the literacy and primary enrolment indicators results from a healthy equilibrium in male and female engagement, secondary and tertiary enrolment indicators show that women have significantly outpaced men’s level of engagement, to the point of nearly duplicating their participation in tertiary education (104.1% for women vs 61% for men). In Health and Survival, Sweden has seen parity decrease over time by –1.1 percentage points. In 2025, a reduction in healthy life expectancy reduces last year’s parity score, leaving both men and women with a slightly lower healthy lifespan and the economy with a slightly lower health parity score. In Political Empowerment a lower share of women in parliament reduces parliamentary parity by -5.8 percentage points and contributes to nearly a two-point reduction of the subindex score (48.8%). Republic of Moldova Moldova enters the top 10 for the first time in 2025, placing 7th overall after improving its overall gender parity score (81.3%) by +2.3 points and climbing six ranks from 2024. Since the index was launched, Moldova has narrowed its overall gender gap by 10 percentage points, from 71.3% to 81.3%, its highest score to date. The subindex where Moldova sees the second-most significant shift from last year’s edition is Economic Participation and Opportunity. Moldova has increased economic parity by +1.6 percentage points, while maintaining parity in technical and professional workers, and virtually similar levels of parity in senior officials, legislators and managers compared to last year. Throughout all editions, Moldova has seen some fluctuation in its economic parity score. While the economy has posted stronger scores in the past two editions, it is yet to surpass its 2023 score of 86.3%. Educational Attainment is only slightly diminished from 2024, where a drop in secondary enrolment parity is higher than the increase in parity for literacy. In Health and Survival, Moldova registers no change since 2024. Where Moldova has made most advances since the last edition (+7.5 points) is in Political Empowerment, for a 2025 parity score of 42.5%. Compared to 2006, Moldova has more than tripled its political parity score. With an incumbent female head of state leading the economy since 2020, Moldova registers a slightly higher score in this category (18.2%) from last edition. Parity in parliamentary representation decreased somewhat since the last edition (from 68.9% to 66.7%). Nevertheless, the share of female ministers increases from 21.4% to 35.7% over the past year, leading to a +28.3 percentage-point increase in ministerial parity. This raises the subindex score, overall parity score, and the economy’s position in the overall rankings. Namibia Placing in the top 10 for the 6th time, Namibia ranks 8th in 2025 after closing its overall gender gap by 81.1%. The economy advances by +.6 percentage points, which contributes to a +12.4-point advance it has recorded since the index was first launched. This year’s results are bolstered by score increases in economic and political parity, the two dimensions where Namibia has made the most gains over time (+18.3 points and +29.5, respectively). Parity in estimated earned income decreased from last edition, despite values increasing for both men and women. However, men’s income rose more significantly than women’s, leading to higher income disparity. Gender parity in workforce representation indicators has not changed from the last edition. Newer values for both indicators – senior officials, managers and legislators as well as professional and technical workers – would be needed to determine meaningful changes over the past few years. Namibia continues to maintain full parity in Educational Attainment. Updates from last edition reveal, however, that in tertiary education both male and female shares of enrolment have decreased – women’s more significantly than men’s, but not sufficiently to place men’s enrolment rates on par with women’s (33.1% for women vs. 19.2% for men). In Health and Survival, Namibia also retains parity, although healthy life expectancy for both women and men has decreased since the last edition, from 58.6 and 53.4 years to 54.6 and 51 years, respectively. In Political Empowerment, Namibia saw its parity scores for women in ministerial positions as well as female head of state increase, by +12.2 and +3.2 percentage points, respectively. Notably,