Qatar is the highest placed Arab country in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2016, which will be published today.
Qatar, ranked 119 globally, is followed by Algeria (120), the UAE (124) and Tunisia (126).
The report finds only 60% of the gender gap closed in the Middle East and North Africa region, whereas in Europe the gap is 75% closed and in East Asia and the Pacific, 68% of the gap has been closed.
It is mentioned in the report that the Arab world is facing an acute misuse of talent by not acting faster to tackle gender inequality, which could put economic growth at risk and deprive economies of the opportunity to develop.
The report is an annual benchmarking exercise that measures progress towards parity between men and women in four areas: educational attainment, health and survival, economic opportunity and political empowerment.
Progress in the key economic pillar has also slowed dramatically with the global gap – which stands at 59% – now larger than at any point since 2008. In 2015, projections based on the Global Gender Gap Report data suggested that the economic gap could be closed within 118 years, or 2133. However, the progress has reversed since then, having peaked in 2013.
With women on average benefiting from only two-thirds of the access to health, education, economic participation and political representation that men have, a number of nations are emerging to challenge the traditional hegemony of the Nordic nations as the world’s most gender-equal societies.
While the leading four nations are Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden, respectively, with Finland overtaking Norway – the next highest placed nation is Rwanda, which moves one place ahead of Ireland to fifth position.
Following Ireland, the Philippines remains unchanged at seventh, narrowly ahead of Slovenia (8) and New Zealand (9), which both move up one place. With Switzerland dropping out of the top 10, 10th position is taken up by Nicaragua.
Elsewhere, the US (45) loses 17 places since last year, primarily due to a more transparent measure for the estimated earned income. Other major economies in the top 20 include Germany (13), France (17) and the UK (20).