11 Worst Countries for Gender Equality

These 11 worst countries for gender equality are far from eradicating disparities between men and women in major areas of social life. Globally, women earn little more than half of men incomes; they remain underrepresented in politics, while parity in access to education and health has not been yet fully reached.

Latest Global Gender Gap Report 2015, which has measured gender inequality since 2006, shows that in last ten years global gender gap has closed by 4 percent while economic parity remains out of reach. In 2015, women earned the same salary as men did in 2006, which means that at the current rate the income gap won’t close for another 118 years. This comes as a paradox, given the fact that every year more and more highly educated women are entering the workforce. Although female students account for a greater share of the university population in 97 countries, leadership positions are still reserved for men. The report finds that only in four countries women managed to seize the majority of leadership positions. Things are even worse in politics. Only in two countries, there is gender parity in parliament while 4 have reached equality in government.

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The extent to which a country invests in improving gender parity is interconnected with its respect for basic human rights. Thus, it is not a surprise that four countries from our previous list 11 worst Asian countries for human rights violation found a place in this ranking as well.

The ranking of worst countries for gender equality is based on Global Gender Gap Report 2015 which analyzed gender parity in four areas – health, education, economy and politics. To measure disparities in each of these areas, the report relied on multiple criteria. For instance, women’s economic participation and the opportunity were determined by taking into account five factors – the labor force participation, wage equality for similar work, the gap in estimated earned incomes, and percent of women who occupy leading professional and technical positions. You will see that some countries improved their scores in these four areas but nevertheless slipped on global gender gap ranking mainly because other countries did a better job in erasing gender inequalities. Also, a few countries performed relatively well in one or two categories but scored low in others which affected their final positions.