Global Gender Gap Report 202549Labour markets, political leadership and supporting frameworks2 Global Gender Gap Report 2025 June 2025 Around the world, economies are grappling with growing uncertainty. One truth remains constant, however: the economic potential of a society depends on whether its people have the equal footing to thrive. Yet despite decades of progress, investments in improving gender parity, across multiple facets of society, remain constrained, imposing a hidden but heavy tax on global growth, weakening the very foundations of economic resilience. The collective cost of gender gaps manifests in underutilized talent, lost productivity, slower innovation and frayed social cohesion.This chapter delves into the shifting dynamics of economic and political participation through the lens of gender, examining how these spheres intersect and evolve in the context of a changing global economy. Building on long-standing data collaboration with LinkedIn and integrating insights from the World Bank’s Women Business and the Law dataset, this chapter explores how gender differences shape and are shaped in a changing world. It considers how gender gaps in the labour-force are evolving, and whether investments in skilling are effectively generating dividends for economies. It also explores how career trajectories are shifting beyond the traditional ladder, and whether leadership representation in both public and private sectors is balanced. The chapter also highlights the importance of reducing implementation gaps that stand in the way of meaningful progress and delves into how the rewiring of global trade flows could impact men and women differently. With talent availability already ranked as one of the top barriers to economic and business strategy, countries that draw from their full talent pool and integrate the vast, underutilized potential of women will have a clear advantage, building a stronger foundation for long-term growth. For economies across the income spectrum, higher female labour-force participation can have an outsized positive impact on productivity by increasing the size and diversity of the workforce. 4 This is a continued incentive for government and business to enhance women’s footprint in the economy beyond 40.2% in the workforce and 28.8% in management.Workforce participation and senior leadership 2.1

GGGR 2025