GGGR 2025

Global Gender Gap Report 20258Speed of progress –The report finds that in just under two decades, 99 out of 100 economies in the constant sample have improved their overall gender parity scores – gaining an average 6 percentage points from their initial baseline score. – Globally, gender parity has increased by +4.8 percentage points since 2006. In this coordinated push towards global parity, access to both economic and political opportunity has widened. Parity has significantly risen in the world’s senior economic leadership (+17.5 percentage points), in higher education (+16.1 percentage points), in governing cabinets (+12.6 percentage points), and in legislative bodies (+14.7 percentage points). – Global momentum picked up in 2024, bringing the index closer to the pre-pandemic trajectory. The 2025 index findings show that gender parity rose across all dimensions in 2024, and in 11 of the 14 indicators – marking a notable acceleration from last year’s results. – Based on the speed of change adopted since 2006, the report analyses economies with similar rates of advancement and finds that the economies that have moved the fastest to parity over time include Bangladesh, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia. Labour markets, political leadership and supporting frameworks –Around the world, economies are grappling with growing uncertainty. Despite decades of progress, efforts to achieve gender parity remain constrained, imposing a hidden but heavy tax on global growth and weakening the foundations of economic resilience – expressed in underutilized talent, lost productivity, slower innovation and frayed social cohesion. As the global context evolves, challenges and opportunities emerge for economies that seek to close gender gaps and adopt gender parity as a strategy for growth: expanding women’s participation in the workforce, strengthening leadership pipelines, improving skills-to-work transitions, enhancing policy implementation, and ensuring inclusive outcomes in global trade. –Workforce participation and senior leadership: Women’s workforce participation globally has risen to 41.2% in 2024, with notable gains in traditionally male-dominated sectors such as Infrastructure (+8.9 percentage points). However, gender-based industry segregation persists, with women still concentrated in lower-paying, people-centric industries like Healthcare and Care (58.5%) and Education (52.9%). A greater balance between women's and men's workforce representation across industries would support creativity and innovation, address talent and skills shortages, and close wage gaps, amid technology transformations and demographic shifts. –Returns on education investment: Increasingly, women are outperforming men at tertiary education levels. Despite this, they remain underrepresented in the workforce and in leadership roles — only 29.5% of tertiary-educated senior managers are women. This mismatch highlights systemic inefficiencies in translating skill preparedness into economic engagement and leadership. As younger generations become the face of the global the workforce, an opportunity emerges for decision-makers to seize long-term talent dividends by ensuring the workforce can effectively capture total talent. –Career pathways: Between 2015 and 2024, the share of women in top management rose from 25.7% to 28.1%, but progress has slowed post-2022. In many sectors, top-level gains are outpacing mid-level promotions, risking the sustainability of balanced talent pipelines. As cross-industry experience rises, particularly among women, nonlinear career paths are becoming more common. As an economic solution to both demographic and workforce transitions, the care economy remains underleveraged. Robust care systems can improve workforce planning and economic productivity by supporting parents and caregivers who seek a different balance. Currently women are 55.2% more likely than men to take career breaks, and for longer durations (19.6 months vs. 13.9 months) largely due to parenting responsibilities. –Political leadership: Globally, women remain significantly underrepresented in the political sphere, including legislative bodies – where they represent fewer than one-third of parliamentary speakers. Across legislative institutions, there are 161 bodies with a gender equality mandate, leadership of which remains predominantly female. Women are also underrepresented in cabinet portfolios such as economy, infrastructure, and defence - a distribution with tangible economic consequences in the shaping of national priorities and public investment. –The role of legal frameworks: A major barrier to progress is the “implementation gap” — the disconnect between gender-equal laws and the infrastructure needed to enforce them. Across economies included in the index, there is a near-universal implementation gap. Even economies with advanced legal frameworks show wide differences in practical support. Adopting high legal standards alone is insufficient to close gender gaps; robust implementation mechanisms are key to translating policy into real gender parity outcomes. –Geoeconomic risks and opportunities: Both technological transformation and geoeconomic fragmentation create new risks