Global Gender Gap Report 202552Maximizing returns on education investment 2.2 Men Note Average share for 16 economies: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, Spain, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States of America. Source LinkedIn Economic Graph Research Institute.Values as of 2024Share of women and men in the workforce by educational attainment and seniority level, selected economiesFIGURE 2.3 WomenShare of women in the workforce with a given level of educational attainment and seniority level Top-level management Total Workforce10 02030405060708090100 Non-tertiary degree Tertiary degree Non-tertiary degree Tertiary degreeIntegrating women’s skills and experience into the workforce contributes to stronger and more balanced economies, 5 yet many economies are failing to translate educational attainment into full workforce utilization. This signals a largely untapped return on education investment: talent is being siphoned inefficiently, leaving valuable human capital underleveraged. In 2024, men continue to be better represented in the workforce across all levels of educational attainment – comprising 65% of workers without a tertiary degree and 60% with tertiary diplomas (Figure 2.3). This is despite the fact that women graduate from tertiary education at higher rates than men. Importantly, among tertiary-educated women in the workforce, just 29.5% make it to top leadership, despite representing 40.3% of the workforce. Even for women with master’s or bachelor’s degrees, top-level representation plateaus at 30.7% and 30.8%, respectively. In other words, the gap between women’s representation in the total workforce and in senior leadership widens as education levels increase, signalling a clear disconnect between educational attainment and economic engagement.This disparity underscores the inefficiency of current systems in translating women’s skills into leadership and economic decision-making roles. Demographic shifts suggest that workforce transformation will also see gender parity dynamics change. Women aged 16-28 years now represent 45.7% of the workforce, while the representation of women from those aged 61-79 years stands at 26.8%, indicating that younger women are finding their way into the workforce and offering a demographic dividend for economies that can, in the decades ahead, retain and nurture the career progression of a highly educated labour force.

GGGR 2025