Global Gender Gap Nears Parity at 69.2% but Faces Reversals in Political Empowerment, Says WEF

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 16 — Women have reached senior leadership in business and government at levels rarely seen two decades ago, yet remain largely underrepresented in roles with the greatest economic and political influence, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The Global Gender Gap Report 2026, published in Geneva today on the 20th anniversary of the index, benchmarked 145 economies across four core dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.

The report reveals that the global gender gap currently stands at 69.2% closed (where 100% represents full parity), marking a 0.4 percentage point increase over the past year. Among a constant sample of 97 economies tracked since 2006, the gap has narrowed by 5.2 percentage points to 69.4%. However, progress remains fragile, with economic participation (61.7%) and political empowerment (22.1%) lagging furthest behind.

While political empowerment has recorded the largest gain over the 20-year span—improving the ratio of women ministers from one for every 8.1 men in 2006 to one for every 4.3 today, and parliamentary representation from one for every 5.6 men to one for every three—the dimension is showing clear signs of reversal. The share of constant-sample economies led by a female head of state peaked at 27% in 2022 before falling back to 2016 levels, erasing earlier gains.

“Twenty years of data show that gender parity is achievable. Parity is a foundation for growth and competitiveness, but it is not inevitable. To accelerate, governments and employers need to learn from the policies that work and apply them faster. A new economy demands a new approach to talent,” said WEF Managing Director Saadia Zahidi.

Regionally, Europe reclaimed the top global position by closing 75.7% of its gender gap, hosting seven of the world’s top 10 overall performers and leading globally in political empowerment at 37%. In contrast, Southern Asia ranked seventh at 64.5%, remaining the lowest-scoring region in economic participation and opportunity (40.9%) despite recording a 15 percentage point surge in educational attainment since 2006.

The report also highlighted persistent gender disparities in high-growth technology sectors. LinkedIn data cited in the report shows women remain less represented in artificial intelligence (AI) firms compared to non-AI counterparts across all levels, comprising 36.6% of individual contributor roles and 25.3% to 27.7% of top management. Furthermore, women make up only 19.3% of AI engineers and remain concentrated in lower-paid data annotation positions, even as the share of female founders with AI engineering skills grew from 2.3% in 2019 to 8.7% in early 2026.

–NMT