Ireland falls out of top 10 in rankings on narrowing gender gap

Ireland has fallen two places in a global ranking of countries’ progress towards narrowing the gender gap, putting the Republic outside the top 10 for the first time ever.

While the overall economic, social, health and political disparity between men and women here has narrowed by 79.2 per cent over time, the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) latest Global Gender Gap Report indicates that progress faltered last year with Ireland slipping to 11th in the rankings from ninth last year and as high as fifth a decade ago.

Iceland retains its status as the most gender-equal country, followed by Norway, Finland, New Zealand and Sweden.

Out of 146 countries included in the study, Ireland ranked joint first – along with 25 other nations – in the educational attainment category indicating a one-to-one parity between men and women when it comes to accessing education.

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However, the State slipped six places to 41st globally in terms of economic participation by and opportunities for women within the economy.

The Republic’s weakest scores came in the political empowerment category with more than half (53.5 per cent) of ministerial roles filled by men and a similar proportion (53.8 per cent) of parliamentary seats being occupied by men.

Still, Ireland ranked 17th out of 146 countries for the political empowerment of women.

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Overall, the WEF report indicates that little progress has been made globally in the past year towards closing the gender gap which will take an estimated 131 years to resolve at current rates of progress.

It will also take 162 years to close the political empowerment gender gap and 169 years for the economic participation and opportunity gap to be rectified, according to the report.

Having closed by 68.4 per cent, the global disparity between men and women improved just 0.3 per cent since last year’s edition of the report with the overall rate of change “slowing considerably” in recent times.

“Recent years have been marked by big setbacks for gender parity globally, with previous progress disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on women and girls in education and the workforce, followed by economic and geopolitical crises,” said Saadia Zahidi in her foreword to the report, noting the “tepid progress” made in certain areas.

“The recovery from the shock and ensuing polycrisis has been slow and, so far, incomplete, and the current context, coupled with technological and climate change, risks causing further regression in women’s economic empowerment,” the report’s authors noted.

“Not only are millions of women and girls losing out on economic access and opportunity, but these reversals also have wide-ranging consequences for the global economy.”

The report concluded that “collective, co-ordinated and bold action by private and public sector leaders” is required to accelerate progress.