When our granddaughter was born 20 years ago, and I was still heavily involved in the corporate sector, I believed she would see much better gender equality when she entered the workforce than I was experiencing in Australia at the time.

The latest report from the World Economic Forum’s Gender Equality Index has shown me how wrong I was. We are 134 years from closing the global gender gap. How disheartening! Some of this can be related to a general global slowdown and the pandemic but certainly not much of it.

This year, the Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks gender parity across 146 countries, providing a basis for robust cross-country analysis. It makes for interesting reading and the ranking tables of countries around the world by sector are fascinating.

Australia has made limited progress to the country index, up two places since the 2023 edition to now being ranked 24^th in the world for gender equality. That said, the UK is ranked 14^th and the United States continues to be ranked 43^rd, so some are citing this as a reason for hope. However, when I see New Zealand is ranked fourth I wonder how we can keep getting it so wrong and still do little to nothing about it.

With a ranking of 42, Australia falls well behind on economic participation and opportunity. Australia’s ranking on educational attainment is also behind, now ranked 84^th of the 146 countries. Where Australia does do well is on political empowerment and we score an impressive 17^th for women in political positions. 

Earlier this year the Minister for Women launched the Australian Government’s Working for Women: A Strategy for Gender Equality. It sets out a path to make progress towards the vision of gender equality over the next 10 years, with a focus on five priority areas: gender-based violence; unpaid and paid care; economic equality and security; health; and leadership, representation and decision-making. We can only hope this strategy is successful.

While the World Economic Forum does report some optimism, it notes the election results we have seen so far in 2024 do not point to a general trend of more women getting elected – outside of a bright spot in Mexico which just recently elected its first female president.

Iceland again takes first place on the gender equity rankings having led the index for a decade and a half.  It is the only country to have closed more than 90 per cent of its gender gap. European and Scandinavian countries continue to do better than Australia.

I recommend the report to you.