Canada improves in gender parity: WEF report

Geneva: The World Economic Forum released its annual global gender gap report in which 144 countries were ranked. In this annual report, Canada ranked 16th out of 144 countries.

Canada ranks first among all countries for educational attainment. It also ranked 20th for political empowerment, 29th for economic participation and opportunity, and a distant 105th for health and survival. The country is in first place for equality in educational attainment between men and women, but trails in 56th place for women in parliament.

The report’s Gender Gap Index ranks countries according to calculated gender gap between women and men in four key areas: health, education, economy and politics. Coming in 16th, it’s a good-news story for Canada. The country climbed 19 ranks on the 2017 index, breaking into the top 20 for the first time. The highest possible score is 1 and the lowest possible score is 0. Canada scored 0.769.

The Global Gender Gap Report was first published in the year 2006 by the World Economic Forum. The 2017 report covers 144 major and emerging economies. The Global Gender Gap Index is an index designed to measure gender equality.

The global gender gap widened in 2017 for the first time since the World Economic Forum (WEF) began measuring the divide, according to a new report. WEF's 2017 Global Gender Gap Report shows that the average gap worldwide now stands at 32%, compared to an average gap of 31.7% last year.

Taking other indicators such as access to healthcare and education, and participation in politics into account, the overall gender gap will take 100 years to close, also longer than the 83 years time frame as predicted by the WEF researchers. “Gender parity is shifting into reverse this year for the first time since the World Economic Forum started measuring it,” writes Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman for the World Economic Forum.

According to the report out of the 142 countries covered by the Index both this year and last year, 82 countries have increased their overall gender gap score compared to last year, while 60 have seen it decrease.”

Globally, it wasn’t a good year for closing the gap between men and women.